KFP: SOA  1st Scoll: The Nomad's Creed of Love
by Skoveng77
Summary: Not even a full day back in the Valley of Peace after the downfall of Lord Shen, Po and the Furious Five is made aware that the peacock's body was not recovered after the battle. Po and Tigress sneak off alone without Shifu's permission back to Gongmen.


Kung Fu Panda: Scrolls of Awesomeness – First Scroll: The Nomad's Creed of Love

Character/Concept Disclaimer/Warning: All and any characters, locations, names, or other, mentioned or not, that has appeared in any Kung Fu Panda-related material that appear in belongs to and is copyrighted by law to DreamWorks Animation SKG. I have taken the liberty to name some of the characters that wasn't named specifically in the films or TV series at the time of publishing, but if I'm mistaken, then do feel free to correct me. The story itself and any other character appearing is the sole property of the original author (Skoveng77).

Note: Aziz Ib Did, Kazeem Adbar and The Nomad Tribe are my creation and property, but are not intended for any financial benefits as they are a tribute to the Assassin's Creed video game series. Assassin's Creed is the property of Ubisoft Games.

Pairings: Po and Tigress, Crane and Viper

Content Warning: Contains some violence, partial nudity and 'raw' language. Rated PG-12.

Spoiler Alert: This story is quite spoiler-heavy. There are several references to the films and TV series.

Plot Summary: These events take place immediately right after Po returns to his father in Kung Fu Panda 2. (We're talking seconds after. Watch the movie, and the moment the camera ascends; that's where this story begins.)

Chapter 1: Home is where the heart is.

Master Tigress peeked into the Mr. Ping's restaurant. Usually, she didn't come down here because she knew that the very second she set foot in this place, fans would overwhelm her. It's not that she didn't like them; it's just that socializing made her feel awkward.

To her great relief, she saw only a pig woman and her little son. And she noticed that Po merely patted the boy on the head and said 'Happy Birthday' as he passed him without any further bother. She guessed that if he could, so could she. As planned, she did. She walked in, patted the boy on the head with a smile, and walked on. Mission successful. She did, however, hear the boy cheer to his mother how happy he was for meeting both the Dragon Warrior AND the Dragon Warrior's hero in the same day.

Now she was right outside the door to the kitchen. The door was wide open, but this being someone's house, she took the courtesy of knocking on the door frame. Po and Mr. Ping turned to see who it was. When Po saw Tigress, he smiled eagerly.

"Master Tigress! An honor!"

He bowed low to the Tiger Style Master.

"Po, it's just me." Tigress said. "You don't have to bow to me."

"Ahem, maybe not." Po said, fiddling with his fingers. "But I wanna preserve the restaurant's reputation too, y'know, and therefore, well, I bow."

Tigress smiled, and bowed back. "Well, master chefs, I'm grateful to be here."

"Hey, we were just about to eat!" Po said. "You just gotta try my dad's Stinky Tofu! It's a-ma-zing!"

As they sat down to eat, Tigress observed the father and son as they conversed. She had never before thought it strange that Po's adoptive father was a goose. After all, HER adoptive father was Master Shifu, a red panda. But now that she knew that one of Po's main purposes to go to Gongmen City was to find his real parents, she was a bit puzzled that he had remained the same. What happened there, really?

"Hey, Tigress, you awake?"

Po's voice woke Tigress from her thoughts.

"Huh? What?"

"I asked you, what do you think of the tofu?"

"Oh! Right." Tigress smiled awkwardly. "I love it. Again, I'm baffled by the cooking skills of the both of you."

"Aw, don't say that." Po waved her off with a wry smile. "You know my tofu rarely turn out right. I'm a noodle guy through and through."

"Alright, so maybe your tofu might, occationally, be a bit off," Tigress said. "But then there's your bean buns, your rice noodles, your vegetable soup, your sweetpie, your radish stew, your…"

"OK, OK, I get it."

"…which more than make up for it. Don't berate yourself, Po, you have great culinary skills."

After the meal, Mr. Ping insisted to take the dishes alone so that Po could entertain their guest. Tigress was glad for this since she had initially come down here to speak with Po. She had to talk to him about the things they had discussed on their trip to Gongmen, and what he had experienced. And this also was addressed when Po just asked directly:

"So, Tigress, what did you come for anyway?"

"Well, Po, I thought that maybe you wanted to talk." Tigress said. "About what we talked about a few days ago, and what you learned while we were away. You did seem very upset when we first set out, and you said that you were upset to know that you were adopted."

"Eh…" Po scratched his jaw. "Not to be arrogant, Tigress, but I don't really feel any need to talk about it. I found the answers I needed, and I'm content."

"Well, I'm curious." Tigress said as she leaned in closer. "Po, I'm an adoptee too. And I never have had, nor probably never will have, the opportunity you had; to see my parents again, or my hometown. This might not be my story, but I want to, need to, know."

Po closed his eyes and sighed as his head dropped. Tigress gulped. She understood she had been mistaken. Sure, she knew that Po had had closure, but she hadn't realised it had been a bad one.

"Oh Gods, Po, I'm so sorry!" she said. "I… I didn't realize… I didn't mean…"

But Po raised his hand to make her stop. And without any ado, he just got right into telling his story;

"When Shen shot me with the big fireball-thingy in the iron foundry, I was hurled into the Gongmen river out in the countryside, a couple of miles outside the harbor entrance. Shen's Soothsayer found me out there, and brought me to an old, burned-out shack out on an opening in the wilderness to dress my wounds and restore me with acupuncture. When I came to, she told me the shack was in fact my childhood home, and the opening used to be my hometown, until Shen burned it to the ground and… killed all the panda villagers."

Tigress winched as she heard this. Po went on;

"Through her story, and my own meditation towards inner peace, I recollected my nightmares which was memories, and was able to remember what actually happened that night. When Shen attacked, my real dad protected my mum's escape from the village. Deep in the woods, she found a cart filled with baskets of vegetables that were due for delivery to the Valley of Peace. She left me there, and led Shen and the wolves that followed her in pursuit towards the outskirts of the woods again and away from me."

Po swallowed before continuing;

"I have come to terms with the possibility that my real parents most likely died that night. But it's not as bad as it sounds. I mean, that goose over there is the only father I've only known, so it's not like anything's changed. And hey, my story might not have a happy beginning, but just look at where I am today. I have a dad who loves me, I have noodles and bean buns, I have Kung Fu and inner peace, I carry the title of Dragon Warrior, I have a master who I respect, five best friends who I adore, and together with those five I'm a member of the coolest, most awesome Kung Fu team ever. I'm the luckiest panda in all of China. I mean, c'mon! How cool is that?"

Now Tigress gave a weak smile, as she reached over and gave Po's paw a light squeeze.

"I'm happy for you, Po." she said. "I'm not so different from you, you know. No parents, hometown or happy childhood, but now I have Shifu, Kung Fu, the palace, the Furious Five, and I have you. Though you and Monkey sometimes drive me crazy. Like when I had river fever and you two pretended to sneeze throwing stars and radishes, and Mantis."

"Eh, it's all in good fun." Po said. "Oh! By the way, I wanna show you something."

He left the table and came back with a dirty, sooty teddy bear in his hand. It resembled a panda.

"I found this in the shack." he said. "I remembered that I dropped it when my mum ran into the woods with me. Strangely enough, it had prevailed all this time. It's the last thing I have left from my childhood."

Tigress smiled again.

"But then I had this idea;" Po went on. "I think I'll clean him up, put a pair of miniature pants on him, and say it's the new and improved Dragon Warrior Action Figure. Now he's even got the Belly Bounce Attack, see?"

Po wiggled the teddy bear so that its belly bounced back and fourth, making it look like Po when he used to bounce off opponents with his belly. Now Tigress laughed out loud.

"Yes, that sounds like a great idea." she said. "You should ask Teng the toy vendor to make some of them."

They then suddenly heard the alarm bell from further down in the village being rung.

"Bandits!" Po said as he put the teddy bear on the table. "Looks like no rest for the hard, eh?"

"Go get the others!" Tigress said. "I'll hold the bandits off."

"All due respect, Tigress," Po said as he put his hand on Tigress' shoulder to stop her from running off. "You climb the stairs to the palace way faster than me. You get the others, I hold off the bandits 'til you guys arrive, OK?"

Tigress reasoned to herself that the panda was right, and gave a quick nod to her friend before they ran out of the restaurant and took off in opposite directions. Tigress leaped up the stairs as fast as her feet could. Sure, it was probably just that idiot bandit Fung the Crocodile and his gang who tried to raid the village again (he'd never learn), but she still didn't like the fact that Po was down there alone, probably already engaging in combat. She sprinted into the training hall to find the others training while Master Shifu observed.

"Bandits in the village!" she yelled. "Po is holding them off alone!"

Master Shifu merely snapped his fingers and pointed to the door and Tigress behind him with his thumb without even looking, and the others sprinted out all set for village defence. This was pure routine, no need to elaborate anything. If the village was in peril and you were a member of this team, you just went with no questions asked.

Tigress led them to the village and started to look for Po. It didn't take long though, because Po was right in the middle of the town square. The whole place looked OK, and Po was just looking slowly around himself in a combat pose. The Furious Five was a bit confused by this odd sight. What was Po doing? Then they noticed that it was all quiet and the place was deserted. Where were the bandits? Why wasn't the bell sounding?

"Po?" Tigress whispered. "Is everything OK?"

Po looked over, and put his finger to his lips to signal that they had to stay quiet and waved them in. The Furious Five nodded and moved in closer, standing in combat stances in case someone or something would jump out and attack.

"What is it?" Tigress asked with a whisper.

"Wolves." Po whispered back. "Shen's wolves were here a moment ago. When I arrived, they all just bolted. I didn't get to take on any of them."

"Shen's wolves? What are they doing here?" Monkey asked.

"They're probably just plundering random villages to survive." Mantis said. "After all, they don't have any leadership after Shen killed their boss and we defeated Shen."

"We fought them in Gongmen City." Crane said. "That's three days travel away from here, all over at the other side of China. Do you seriously think they would come all this way just to 'randomly' plunder this village?"

Mantis was about to argue back, but Viper stopped him.

"Quit arguing!" she hissed. "Po said they're here, didn't he? That's the point, not why they're here!"

They observed their surroundings some more, but there was nothing. Not a sound to be heard, not a thing to be seen. It was like being in a graveyard at night.

"Sure it was them?" Tigress asked Po.

"'Course I'm sure." Po said. "I saw enough of them during our fight in Gongmen."

It was then they saw him. The Wolf Boss came walking into the square, alone. When they saw him, he dropped his hammer and put his paws in the air.

"I surrender." he said. "I mean you no harm."

"Do you think us stupid!" Tigress snarled. "Why would we believe you?"

"I understand your doubts," the Wolf Boss said. "But believe it or not, we're actually here to ask for your help."

"You're lying." Po said. "Why would we help you?"

A bit disappointed and annoyed, the Wolf Boss now lowered his hands.

"I thought that was what you Kung Fu Masters did; helping people." he said.

"Not when they try to raid our home." Monkey said.

"We did no such thing!" the Wolf Boss stated firmly. "We came quietly into the village with our weapons sheathed and then suddenly this big bell in a tower goes off, and that panda comes running to, all furious and crap! We ran for our lives!"

Tigress looked over at Po. "Is that true, Po?"

"Actually, when I think about it," Po bit his lip when he said this. "No, they didn't actually attack anyone or steal anything. They were just… here. Y'know, just standing here."

"What should we do now?" Viper asked. "If they didn't do anything, and they're asking for our help, we can't exactly start beating them up, right?"

"Hey, aren't you supposed to be dead, by the way?" Mantis asked the Wolf Boss.

"Shen obviously forgot we wolves wear armor." the Wolf Boss said. "I did get one of his knives in the gut, but thankfully I didn't croak."

Po broke formation, and walked over to the one-eyed wolf. When he was up close, he examined the wolf's torso. He noticed that he was bandaged and that he had a patch of dried blood on the left side of his stomach.

"So, you're OK?" he asked. The Wolf Boss nodded.

Po then grabbed his snout and squeezed hard. The Wolf Boss yelped in pain.

"That was payback for the hammer blow at the Musician's Village and the gut punch outside Shen's tower in Gongmen." Po stated. "Now we're even."

Rubbing his nose, the Wolf Boss nodded with a sad smile.

"Ok, that's fair." he said. "So, will you please help me and my boys?"

"Maybe." Po said. "It's not for me to decide. But we will escort you to Master Shifu at the Jade Palace while keeping close watch over your gang."

An hour later, the Furious Five and Po had gathered the Wolf Boss and his band of 90 wolves in the training courtyard. Shifu circled the wolves while his students guarded each flank and side of them. The wolves had surrendered all their weapons, and were not as much of a threat anymore. Not that they were a threat to begin with; several of them looked despaired and scared.

"My students tell me you have come here seeking our help, correct?" Shifu questioned the wolves. The Wolf Boss nodded.

"What help do you seek then?"

"Well, originally we were to stand trial in Gongmen City." the Wolf Boss said. "This again means that we were to serve time in Gongmen Prison. We don't mind doing the time, but we don't want to serve it in Gongmen. Then we remembered that you had some problems a couple of years back when a Kung Fu Master named Tai Lung escaped from his prison. We hoped that maybe you could help us getting transferred to this prison instead?"

The Furious Five, Po and Shifu exchanged looks when they heard this odd request. The wolves wanted to serve prison time in the old Chorh-Gom Prison? They actually WANTED to be there?

"May I ask why?" Shifu asked. "Why do you want to be locked up in one of the worst prisons in the history of China?"

"It's maybe nothing, but it's just a precaution." the Wolf Boss said. "Y'see, Lord Shen tried to kill me because I disobeyed him, right? And when the citizens of the city started to clean out the ship wreckages from the harbor, Lord Shen's body was nowhere to be found. So, if he's still alive, I have just as reason as any to believe he will come after me and my boys."

More looks were exchanged between the Shifu and his students. Shen was alive?

Chapter 2: If I didn't know better, I'd say you're flirting with me

Shifu was furious! He had gathered his students in the training hall after he had called the Rhino Army from Chorh-Gom to come and pick up the wolves and lead them to the rebuilt prison. He paced back and fourth in front of the students who stood in attention with shameful expressions on their faces. Shifu hadn't actually said anything, but the six of them could tell from his expression that he had not taken the news about Shen lightly.

"I am very disappointed in you!" Shifu barked. "I sent you to Gongmen City to defeat Shen and now I hear that he escaped! This is intolerable! YOU!"

He had stopped in front of Po, and put the tip of his staff at the panda's snout.

"I told you how important it was to not fail me! But yet, you managed that again! You had the Furious Five to back you up, and yet you failed! You had Masters Storming Ox and Croc by your side, and YET you failed! You even had ME there, AND YET YOU FAILED! Was it really so hard for you to just CHECK IF HE WAS THERE!"

"OK, that's enough!"

It was, strangely enough, Tigress who spoke out. She had left her stance of attention and left the line. The four others were shocked to see their leader and Shifu's own adoptive daughter defy her master like this.

"In case I have to remind you, Po did destroy Shen's weapons and ships, as you told him to. And he did take on Shen in close combat, as you told him to." she said. "He didn't fail, he was outsmarted. We all were. Po led the Five well when I couldn't. And the two of us were in that mess together, so the blame is just as much mine as it is his. If Po is to be punished, you have to punish me as well."

Shifu looked at Tigress through narrowed slits of his eyes as he gave his prime student a nasty look. Then he released the breathe he obviously didn't know he was holding, and sighed.

"You're right." he said defeated. "Po did do as you say. But still, the fact that you were outsmarted doesn't sit well with me either. So, I will punish you all equally. Get brooms and rags, and start cleaning this training hall this instant! I want to see it sparkle!"

He left them, and they got to work. Crane and Monkey polished the obstacles in the wooden dummy gauntlet, Mantis the wheels and cogs that drove the whole hall, Viper the fire exhausts on the fire platforms, and Po and Tigress swept all floors and surfaces.

Po and Tigress worked as they fought, shoulder-by-shoulder, so Po noticed that Tigress was irritated and disappointed. Used to that Tigress usually was mostly irritated and disappointed because of him, Po felt that he had to apologise;

"Ahem, look, Tigress… I know that you might not like me much right now and I know I have disappointed you. Again. But… Eh, I… just wanna say, y'know, for what it's worth, ahh, I'm sorry I screwed up. Again."

Tigress looked over at him, but her expression had changed.

"Oh no, Po, I'm not disappointed in you." she said. "OK, maybe a little, but not just you. I'm also disappointed in me. And I'm irritated that we both as a group and individually did so many mistakes. I mean, we're the Furious Five and The Dragon Warrior. We're supposed to be invincible. Unbeatable. We're supposed to be better than this."

"Oh, come off it, Tigress." Viper said from across the hall. "We're not demigods. We make mistakes, just like any other, and we learn from them in hopes we don't make them again. It's what makes us who we are. Live and learn."

"And I don't think we did so bad either." Monkey said.

"Says the guy who forgot to warn us when the Gongmen Prison suddenly was seized by the wolves during our rescue of Master Ox and Master Croc." Crane smirked.

"Hey! That was an honest mistake!" Monkey snapped. "Just like anyone else in this room here, I was stunned when Storming Ox declared Kung Fu as dead! And what about you? When we had to escape that falling tower, you could've easily just have flown us off the tower be flying off to the side! Instead, we had to run all the way to the top and jump off! If not all of us, at least you could've taken Viper and Mantis with you!"

"My wing was INJURED, you dumb baboon-reject!" Crane yelled back.

"Baboon! That's it! Let's go, 'El Storko'!"

The two masters went into their respective combat stances, ready to have it at each other.

"Hey! Stop that!" Mantis said as he came out of the cog works. "There's no reason to point fingers and blame anyone. As Tigress said, we all screwed up. I'm the one who accidentally threw Monkey out of the dragon costume when we infiltrated the jail, but I don't cower away by pointing out others' failures!"

Monkey and Crane stood down in embarrassment. Mantis was right, they shouldn't fight. Instead, they shook hand/wing and apologized to each other and went back to work.

"So, what is your take on the new situation?" Po asked Tigress. "You think Shen survived?"

"I find it hard to believe that." Tigress said. "But if his body wasn't recovered, it's possible. Anywho, I think we should go back to Gongmen City and investigate."

"I think so too, Poo agreed eagerly. So, when do we leave?"

"We can't just leave like that, Po." Tigress said. "We have a duty to the Valley as its guardians. It's our job to protect it."

"It was our job to stop Shen too." Po said. "And the way I see it, we didn't really finish the job. If he's alive, he's bound to try again to destroy Kung Fu. And besides, the only bandits who usually attack our village are Fung and his goons. Even Dad can take those guys, so I'm sure Master Shifu can protect the village on his own while we're gone."

Tigress mused, but she shook her head.

"No, we're not doing anything before Shifu tells us to." she said. "He's already angry with us. No need to toss more wood on that fire."

Po pouted at the response. Tigress was right, but he had hoped for another adventure. He went back to sweeping, mumbling that 'Tigress is boring'.

This was not smart. The very second later, he felt an iron grip in the back of his head that nearly smothered his neck.

"What was that!" Tigress sneered low in the most intimidating voice Po had ever heard her use.

"AH, NOTHING!..."

Tigress clasped her other paw over Po's mouth to keep him from screaming any further. The others hadn't really noticed Po's scream, or they didn't care. Tigress now moved in close to Po's ear so that only he could hear what she was saying:

"I am NOT boring, Panda! You want to go to Gongmen? Fine, we will go to Gongmen! Meet me outside the palace gates when the dinner bell rings! And do NOT dare to wimp out on me, or I'll use your tongue as a brush the next time it's my turn to scrub down the latrines!"

As the sun started to fall behind the horizon in the west, Po snuck out of his room through the window and made his way through the courtyard, just barely avoiding Zeng, Shifu's duck secretary, who passed through with the daily reports of the village's activities.

When he got to the gates, he snuck outside and scouted for Tigress. It was starting to get dark, so he hoped she wasn't hiding too deeply in the bushes outside the palace walls.

"Tiii-greeess!..." Po called out in a low voice. "Are you there?"

He jolted in shock as he suddenly saw two glowing eyes appear in the bushes not two feet away from his face.

"Jeez, Tigress, don't scare me like that!" Po said, feeling his heart race. "For a second there, I thought Tai Lung had returned from the dead."

Tigress came out the bushes with an amused smirk.

"Sorry, couldn't resist." she said. "So, did you evade the others?"

"Evade the others?" Po was confused. "You mean they're not with you?"

"No, of course not." Tigress said as her smile faded. "Wait! Po, did you tell them we were leaving for Gongmen?"

"No, I thought you did." Po answered. "Are… are they not coming?"

Tigress, smile back, shook her head. "No. Just you and me this time, Panda. And I usually don't walk when I travel, so I hope you can manage to keep up."

Before Po could respond, Tigress set out into a huge leap and was suddenly almost halfway down the stairs to the village. Po sighed. First, because he was confused by the short conversation he had just had with Tigress. Just him and her? And second, because he knew there was only one way for him to catch up with her now. He took a deep breath, and then leaped out himself. But, as he expected, he did not have the same graceful and smooth landing on the stairs further down as Tigress had had. Instead, he landed right on his face, then bounced off to another stair step further down on which he landed on his butt, then bounced off anew to land on a new stair step further down on his belly, and so on. About half a minute later, both he and Tigress reached the end of the stairs. She with a beautiful landing from a huge leap, he on his head from a clumsy bounce.

"It'd say that was pretty hardcore," Tigress said, her voice trembling slightly. "But I'm afraid I can't say without laughing. What made you do that?"

"Have you even seen me run? Believe me, this was faster." Po said as he got to his feet and wince as he felt a short pain in his back and shoulder. Nothing serious though, it'd be gone by morning. "By the way, before we set off, let's make a short stop over at my Dad's to pick up some supplies. I didn't get to bring any out from the barracks."

Tigress agreed with a short nod before they ran down to the village.

At Mr. Ping's, Po searched high and low in the restaurant's kitchen. He picked out a fair selection of vegetables, spices, fruits, nuts, flavour, and other ingredients. He also 'borrowed' a frying pan, a cooking pot, some chopsticks, spoons, cutlery, bowls and cups. Then he took a short trip up to his room to collect his backpack, and stuffed it all in it.

Tigress noticed that Po also stuffed some paper scrolls into the backpack as well. She picked one out and read it. It was Scroll 151 of the Thousand Scrolls of Kung Fu. Po explained it was 'homework, by order from Shifu.' Po then left a note for his dad and some money for the food they had taken before they headed towards the road leading out of the village and to the harbour outside the valley. Po was eager to go out on another adventure, but he was a bit concerned that Tigress hadn't brought the rest of the Five with them. Would they succeed, just the two of them?

In the meantime, Crane, Mantis and Viper had gathered at the dining table for dinner. Monkey was cooking tonight. He was eager to show Po that he had learned to make noodles and soup just like Po had taught him to. But when he came to the table, Po wasn't there. Neither was Tigress.

"Anyone seen Tigress and Po?" he asked. "I was hoping Po could test my soup and noodles. I've been practicing a lot lately, and I think I did better this time."

"Haven't seen them since afternoon practice." Crane said. "And they seemed sort of secretive, if you ask me."

"Really?" Viper seemed very interested all of a sudden. "Hey, maybe they eloped!"

"What!" Mantis jumped in surprise and stared at Viper. "Wha, Po and Tigress? Elope? Why?"

The other males also stared at the master of the Kung Fu Snake Style.

"C'mon, guys, haven't you seen them together?" she asked. "You can't have missed, can you?"

"Eh, well…" Monkey scratched his head as he sat down the pots on the table. "I admit that they do prefer to spar with each other more than with any of us, but I thought it was because Tigress was eager to recruit Po into the team."

"Po is already one of us, Monkey." Viper said. "He doesn't need any special sparring training from her to be on the team."

There was a long, awkward silence before Crane asked out loud: "Still, where are they?"

"Couldn't have asked better myself!"

The Kung Fu team jumped in shock. They hadn't noticed that Master Shifu had come in. They all got to their feet and greeted him.

"Ma-ma-master Shifu!" Mantis stottered. "Ah, good evening! We-we didn't hear you come in!"

"That much is obvious." Shifu said. "I don't see Tigress and the panda. I assume they are the ones you wonder the whereabouts of?"

"Ehm… Yes, Master." Viper answered. "We haven't seen them all evening."

"They left for Gongmen City." Shifu said. "They went to see if they could find out what happened to Lord Shen."

"What! We gotta go after them!" Mantis said as he jumped down from the table and headed for the hallway. "Let's go, guys! What're you waiting for!"

"No, Mantis." Shifu said. "This time, I think Po and Tigress should handle it on their own."

"Master Shifu, Shen is dangerous!" Viper protested alarmed. "Please let us go and help them!"

"I think they can manage." Shifu said calmly. "And I also think this trip will be good for them on a different level too. For personal reasons as well as spiritual."

Viper raised an eyebrow as Shifu passed her on his way back out of the kitchen.

"Maybe like you two, Crane and Viper?" he added with a chuckle as he stopped in the door and turned. "Oh, and Monkey? I'll take my supper in the Training Courtyard. I want to meditate outdoors tonight."

As soon he had gone down the hallway and out, Mantis turned to Crane and Viper and asked:

"What'd he mean by 'like you two'?"

The snake and bird couldn't do anything but blush, but also smile sheepishly.

Chapter 3: I trust you. I adore you. I respect you. I think I love you…

The next day, Tigress and Po was in the snowy hills of Wan Wei. It was colder now than the last time they had passed through here since winter was setting in. They had settled down for dinner, and Po had just finished cooking up some stew from radishes, beetroot and carrots. Tigress was digging in and enjoying it greatly.

"It's obvious that you grew up in the restaurant business, Po" she said between chews.

Po smiled as he spooned up stew for himself. He sat down and ate, but Tigress noticed that he wasn't gulping down the food as he used to. As a matter of fact, neither did he during breakfast this morning or supper last night. He seemed to be in deep thought, or depressed.

"Po, is something wrong?" Tigress asked. "You seem so… far away. Almost sad."

"Oh, I'm OK." Po said. "I'm just a bit concerned. I mean, the two of us are going back to fix something that we as a group of six, actually nine if you also count Masters Ox, Croc and Shifu, couldn't get done. Are you sure we did the right thing when we didn't bring Monkey, Mantis, Crane and Viper? Like, we're not gonna hafta play fireball ping-pong again? Y'know, in case last time was, ehm, a fluke?"

"We're not facing the same size of force as last time." Tigress said to console him. "Lord Shen built that army and those weapons over a longer period of time. It's only been four days since we were there. And if he survived that thing falling on top of him, he had to get injured and would need time to heal first. And he doesn't have the wolves to back him up. We sent them to Chorh-Gom ourselves, remember? Also, we're there to just find out what happened. If need be, we will send for the others and just wait. Not all missions has to include fighting, you know."

Po nodded. Tigress did have some good points. They finished their meal, and Po scrubbed their plates and chopsticks in the snow while Tigress put out the fire and rolled up the straw mat they'd been sitting on. When camp was all broken up, they pressed on down the hillside. About an hour or so later, some planning was necessary. Tigress calculated that with this pace, they would be in the Valley of Wan Wei by nightfall, hire a boat and sail the last bit of their trip to Gongmen while sleeping under deck and arrive at the city in the morning. Just like last time. It was a good plan. But it met one obstacle when Po proclaimed that he was 'HUUUNGRYYY!'

"You ate not one hour ago." Tigress said. "Try to show some restraint and self control."

"But I'm bored too." Po complained. "Walking is boring!"

Tigress groaned. "Focus, Po! Read one of the scrolls if you're in need of entertainment. 159 is a good one."

"I'm only at 155." Po said. "And Shifu says they have to be read in order. Besides, I thought I'd do this instead."

Suddenly, a snowball hit Tigress in the back of her head. Furious, she spun around and put her death stare into the panda.

"What! Was! That!"

But Po wasn't affected this time. Instead, he took a stance with a sly grin.

"Ready!" he said.

Tigress' eyebrow rose slowly as the corner of her mouth jerked upwards at the nearly same pace.

"Oh, are you now?" she asked teasingly. "You're sure you're ready?"

Po waved her in with a big grin, so she took that as a signal that he was. She took her own stance and waited.

The wait didn't take long before Po rushed at her with a double chop that she broke off with an inwards double chop of her own that Po deflected with one of Crane's trademark full circled swipes. Tigress engaged a new attack, this time with a spinning kick that Po just ducked beneath and took out the leg she was standing on with a ground spinning kick of his own. Tigress fell on her back on the ground, but she spun around on her shoulder and head and flipped right back up on her feet again, where she was met by Po's backwards elbow that she deflected with a side chop and grabbed his wrist with the intention of tossing him into the ground, but Po used the velocity of her throw by willingly flipping in the same direction, and rolling on the ground as he grabbed the wrist of the paw she used to hold his and flip up into a standing position again.

There was a short pause as they stood snout to snout for a moment.

And for a very brief moment, Tigress felt that she and Po was sharing each others' breaths.

Then Tigress seized the opportunity to grab Po's wrist with her other paw as well, as where Po answered by grabbing her by the wrist of that paw with his free paw and twist it off, but Tigress mere wrenched him off and applied the grip anew only to be grabbed and twisted off again. Before she had the chance to try a third time, Po leaped into a small side-flip jump to force Tigress to release the initial grip she had had on his wrist for some time (only a few seconds, but for the both of them it seemed like minutes), without releasing his own grip on hers. This pulled her out of balance and Po used this to land on his feet, let himself drop backwards onto his back (or rather on his backpack), put his feet to her gut and monkey-flip her. Tigress landed on her back, as Po had expected, and he flipped himself up and backwards feet first so that he sat on top of her. Not too heavily though, he didn't have any plans of crushing her. But heavily enough to partially knock the wind out of her to state that he had won.

Tigress made a huffing exhale as he landed, and then a gasp to regain her breath.

"Now I'm not hungry and bored anymore." Po said sheepish as he finally let go off Tigress' wrist.

Tigress laughed and waved her hands in mock defense.

"I give up, you win." she chuckled. "OK, please get off me now."

"You're really beautiful when you smile, you know that?"

"Eh, what?"

Tigress was caught off guard by Po's sudden statement. Did he just…?

"You are." he said. "It's a shame you rarely smile at all."

"I smile." Tigress said. "I just… smile in a different way than you."

"Yeah, yeah, I know; 'this IS my happy face' and all that." Po said droll. "I mean when you really smile, Tigress. Like when you sit with the children at the Winter Festival. Or laugh. Or like when we were on that boat and I commented you punching the ironwood trees as cool."

"Aah… Look, Po, I'm not that sort of person…" Tigress said, her voice unsteady.

"And when we're talking about that conversation, by the way," Po continued. "You were about to say something as Mantis and the others interrupted us. What was it?"

"What?"

"On the boat." Po said. "When we were on our way to Gongmen City. You said something like, "I was", but then Mantis interrupted us when he asked us what we were talking about and the others came out on deck with him. D'you remember what you were about to say? Sounded pretty important to me."

"No, I'm afraid I don't." Tigress said. "Now, could you please let me up?"

"One last question," Po said. "That conversation and the fact you and I are out here on this mission alone; I suspect a connection. A connection that involves us in regards besides from Kung Fu. Am I right?"

Tigress swallowed nervously. She didn't know if she wanted to admit to this right now, but it wasn't really fair to Po to not tell him either. She knew it was a coward's way, but she decided to delay this for now:

"We got to get down to the valley." she said. "Or we'll lose daylight."

Po bit his lip as reaction to this. Obviously, Tigress wasn't going to answer the question. Not now at least. He nodded and got off her so she could get up.

"We're… we're cool, right?" he asked as she got to her feet. "This isn't going to, you know, change…?"

"It's alright, Po." Tigress said. "No harm done."

She regained her composure and started walking on down the hillside again. Po sighed and followed her. He was glad that she wasn't angry at him, but the whole situation of being out here with her alone still felt awkward.

As a matter of fact, if he thought about it, it had all started when Tigress had come to see him at the restaurant after their return from Gongmen last week, the same day as the wolves had come to the valley to ask for 'transfer' to Chorh-Gom Prison. Why was she so interested in his childhood? Why was she suddenly starting to sometimes act so… Po couldn't find a better word for it than 'confidential'. It was almost as she was acting like a worried sister or mother. Po didn't mind though, he had such admiration for her and he could still remember those days when he only dreamed about just seeing her in the flesh. Now they were comrades in arms and best friends.

Also, Po had been thinking about some of the other things that had happened recently: The two of them having the confidant talk about him being adopted when they sailed into the city about a week ago, her hugging him in the prison to make him understand she didn't want to see him killed, her screaming in panic when Shen shot him with the weapon in the iron foundry, her pushing him away to take the fireball for him when Shen opened fire during the fight in the Inner Harbour, her reaching after him from the wreckage as he swam away from her when they were all floating around in river outside the harbour (he guessed that maybe she thought he didn't notice, but he did), and of course the sudden frequent appraisal each time he did something right. Po had felt something new and unfamiliar each and every time, and he wasn't sure if he liked it or not. When the feeling was there, it sometimes hurt. But when it wasn't there, he sometimes longed for it.

Again he sighed, and continued down the hillside after Tigress. Just like her, he had decided that this could all wait. Gongmen City waited in the horizon.

Later on, as the sun was setting, they chartered a boat to take them down the river to the Gongmen territory. As it was getting late, they had withdrawn under deck to go to sleep. Tomorrow would be stressful for sure as they had to make their investigation in a city that was still licking its wounds and recovering from some pretty hard hits. And of course, they had to be discreet. It wouldn't be popular for the citizens of this damaged city to know that their tyrant maybe still drew breath.

Tigress knew this, and she was completely focused on it now. She didn't let anything else come in the way. Not the Valley of Peace. Not the Jade Palace. Not the Five. Not Shifu. Not P…

Po. It seemed like she just couldn't get him out of her mind. The very thought of him made her go all fuzzy and warm. But also scared and sad. At times these feelings combined reminded her of when she was younger and had a crush on Master Shifu, but this was so much more powerful. So much more overwhelming. Had she… fallen in love with Po?

She had thought so for some time now. At first, she had thought that it was just admiration for the one person who had proven worthy of becoming the Dragon Warrior, but considered her to be his idol. And then she had thought that it was because Po did actually impress her at times. Not very often, she had to admit, but still. Also, they had become so much in synch in combat and training. They had such equal minds when it came to fighting that one would know what the other was going to do before that person had the chance to think. And lately it had been because she and he had so many similarities. They were both orphans, they were both dedicated to Kung Fu, they had both grown up in the Valley of Peace, they had both been trained by the same master without trying to out-challenge each other, and last but not least, they were the two who knew the most about each other than anyone else in the team of six. They had, she felt, built such a solid and sturdy confidance to one another that they could talk openly and freely about anything. Except…

She tossed over on her side. Thinking of this now made her feel uncomfortable. She peeked over where Po was sleeping. Or rather, was supposed to be sleeping. He was gone.

Chapter 4: It's good to touch the green, green grass of home.

It was midnight and the moon hung high over the Jade Palace and the barracks of the Furious Five. Crane was still up in his room, making a large calligraphy print. This one said "Nobility", and was going to be hung in the training hall. It would match the "Honor" and "Humility" prints he had made earlier in the day. A soft knock on the door made him stop and put his calligraphy brush away.

"Enter." he answered.

Viper came in. They smiled warmly at each other as their eyes met.

"Not disturbing, am I?" she asked. "I couldn't sleep, so I went outside to clear my head. Then I noticed that your night candle was lit. Thinking that you maybe would appreciate the company, I came and here I am."

Crane bowed to officially welcome his guest.

"I appreciate the company." he said. "Couldn't sleep, huh? You worried about Tigress and Po too?"

"Yes, I am." Viper said. "Not in the sense of them being in danger or anything, I know they can take care of themselves. I worry about their feelings."

Crane nodded in agreement. This was a discussion that he and Viper had been having for some time now and one they sometimes quite enjoyed. Over the last year, they had observed how the relationship between Po and Tigress had grown and built. It was obviously not clear to either of the two what was happening to them, which sometimes amused Crane and Viper. They saw a lot of what had happened between them in what was happening to their two friends now.

"I know." Crane said. "They're standing at a crossroads right now. A lot of what happened when we were trying to stop Shen could turn crucial to how things will be turn for them. I, for one, was awestruck when Tigress suddenly decided to express herself to Po when we went on the offensive and tried to blow up Shen's weapons foundry. It was very touching as well as symbolic, you know. One last sign of affection before dying."

"You were awestruck back at the harbour too." Viper teased. "I saw your beak fall open."

"Oh, admit it, dear." Crane teased back. "You didn't imagine them both opening up like that on the same day either, did you?"

"OK, maybe not." Viper answered. "But back to the concern. Now that they're on their own, how do you think they'll fare? This is new to them both. Tigress has never had, you know, a boyfriend before, and I'm pretty sure neither has Po."

"True." Crane said. "And then there's the age difference too. I mean, how old is Po anyway? 30, 32 years of age? Tigress is nearly…"

"Hey! Manners!" Viper shot in. "A gentleman does not question in a lady stranger's age or weight."

Crane gave a sheepish smile as he bowed in apology.

"And besides, why would the age difference matter?" Viper asked on. "There's a significant age difference between the two of us, and it has never proved to be a problem."

"No, but we're different." Crane said. "With us, I'm the older. And with Po and Tigress, Po is the y… I mean, Tigress is the ol… Eh…"

Viper rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Alright, fine." she said. "Speak freely."

Relieved by this, Crane spoke:

"In Po and Tigress' case, Po is the younger of the two. I might sound old-fashioned and moralistic here, but I believe that it usually is correct custom for the male to be the older in a relationship."

"It's more common that way, yes." Viper agreed. "But it's not unheard of. In my family, there were many females that were older than their male partners. Don't be a stick in the mud, dear."

Crane smiled wryly. He knew that his statement had been without substance. It was just his opinion. Trying to escape any further embarrassment, he changed the topic;

"Hey, how long do you think Master Shifu has known about us, by the way?"

"Oh, he probably saw it before we did." Viper said. "His cold exterior does hold a warm heart. He's not without compassion, you know."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Crane agreed. "But why did he just let it go? I always thought that if he found out, he'd tell us to end it."

"Well, that just proves that you were wrong then." Viper said. "Nowadays, his own adoptive daughter is apparently falling in love with a panda that he sometimes just can't stand, and yet he doesn't interfere. Must be a side to him that we just didn't know about."

Crane nodded. At that point, someone knocked at the door. They froze in position when they realised that whoever this was, the person most likely had heard most of this conversation, if not all.

"C... Come in…?" Crane answered.

The door slid open, revealing Master Shifu standing outside in the hallway. Crane and Viper was taken aback by the sight of their master concidering the fact that they had just talked about him. But he was just smiling politely, so they guessed that they weren't in trouble.

"You're both right." Shifu said. "I am indeed a sap for young couplings, such as yourselves. And like you, I hope for Tigress and Po's happiness. Well, if they find it, that is. But…"

He half-closed the door again before going on:

"It's midnight and tomorrow you all have more training and more studying to do, so I'd appreciate it if you went to bed."

He closed the door, and seemed to leave. Then he came back and cracked the door open and peeked in.

"Preferably in your respective, separate rooms." he finished with a sly grin before finally leaving for his own quarters.

In the meantime, on the river boat that was heading towards Gongmen City under the charter of Master Tigress and Po, the Dragon Warrior, named master came running up from the boat quarters and onto the deck.

"Po!"

Tigress was half-panicking after she had noticed the panda was not on his sleeping mat down below. She was relieved to see him up her on deck, but the relief was immediately replaced by confusion and irritation when she saw that he was messing with the rudder of the boat which she had tied down into place so the boat would keep a steady course towards the city. Po had already removed the rope and was now shoving the rudder lever to the side, making the boat break right towards the river bank.

"Hey, what are…! You mess up the rudder's course!" Tigress said. "Damn it, Po, it took me nearly an hour to direct the rudder to keep the course straight and steady! What'd you do that!"

"She called on me." Po said, almost as he was in a trance. "I gotta go ashore and hear what she has to say."

"What? Who?" Tigress asked. "Are you sure you're OK, Po?"

"I'm fine." Po assured her. "Shen's Soothsayer came to me in a dream just now and told me to go ashore. She knows what happened. She told me."

"She came in your…," Tigress didn't know whether to be angry at Po or concerned for him for heeding the orders from someone he had seen in a dream. "Po, it was a dream. It wasn't real."

"That's what I tried to tell myself too." Po said. "But she sounded too convincing. Look, it's not like we're in a race against time here. We'll just go ashore and look for her, and if I'm wrong, we just continue down the river to the city. Easy-peasy. I'll even hold the rudder myself 'til we arrive at the loading docks in the harbour if I'm wrong about this. Deal?"

Tigress mused at Po. He was right, this wasn't a time scheduled mission (technically it wasn't even a mission, they'd just gone temporarily 'rogue'), but this delay sounded just down right stupid to be honest. Still, she had to admit that this Soothsayer was a lot more than just an ordinary soothsayer. Maybe Po was telling the truth?

"Alright, fine." she said. "You have one hour."

As soon the boat hit shore, Po hopped onto dry land. He looked over to Tigress.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" she asked.

"I was just wondering," Po said. "Back at Dad's place, you asked me about the village I had the first years of my childhood, right?"

"Yes? And?"

"Well, this is it. Or, what's left of it. You like to see it?"

"This place here? Ahem… Yes! Yes, I'd love that."

She too jumped onto the shore and followed Po as he made his way into the outskirts of a nearby forest.

The weather was wet and cold and a chilled mist laid spread across this whole place. Some places the moisture has even frozen into a thin layer of frost in the grass. But despite this looked like a haunted valley, the vegetation was lush and beautiful. It was obvious that as soon as the fires from Shen's rampage had died out, Nature had done an amazing job to restore itself, and against all odds, the place had remained untouched by civilisation since. Tigress was just awestruck by the sight of it all.

They went into the forest, walked a few yards in, and came to a huge clearing in the middle of the forest. The clearing was somewhat swamp-like, and there was a constant, mild shower of rain. Tigress understood this had to be the ruins of the village. Well, there were barely any ruins at all either. Just two partly burned-down shacks, and a shabby wooden make-shift bridge crossing a stream that went through the middle across the entire clearing. Po headed towards one of the shacks, which was partly illuminated by a cooking fire. So, at least there was someone here.

As they came closer, the Soothsayer came fourth. She smiled at them.

"So you heard my call." she said. "I'm glad, panda."

"Yeah, I did." Po said as his nodded his head eagerly. "Entering someone's dream to call for them? That's awesome! How'd you do it? I didn't know you had, y'know, mental Kung Fu powers of the Universe or some other or whatnot…"

The Soothsayer shook her head: "It's not Kung Fu, my dear boy, just me and my natural gift of foresight."

They followed her as she signalled them to do so. She took them over to the cooking fire, where she had a metal pan over the fire. There was sizzling water in the pan, and a few straws of grass.

"Panda, I require some of your hair and clothes." she said. "I had a vision last night I need to confirm. And one that you too need to see."

Po yanked out some of his fur with a pained "Ouch!" and tore out a piece of his pants. He gave them to the Soothsayer who dropped them into the pan.

"You two are going to Gongmen again, yes?" she asked. "You fear Shen survived, yes?"

Po nodded. The Soothsayer dropped something into the pan, and a blue puff of smoke rose up from the pan and vaporised. But just as it did, Po could briefly see an image in the smoke…

"NO!" Po fell on his butt and covered his eyes when he saw what was in the smoke. "NO! NOOO!"

Tigress leaped to, and took hold of Po and tried to pull him up.

"Po! What's wrong!" She directed her attention to the Soothsayer. "What the hell just happened! What did you do to him!"

"She didn't do anything to me, Tigress. Calm dowm." Poo said. "I'm fine."

He got back to his feet. Tigress could see in his eyes that whatever had happened, it had scared Po out of his mind.

"Ehm, Tigress," Po fiddled fingers as if he was about to confess something or say something he knew Tigress wouldn't like. "I need to speak with the Soothsayer alone of a moment, OK? Do you think you could just wait here for me 'til I'm done?"

"Is something wrong?" Tigress asked.

Po was still fiddling his fingers, and now he didn't even dare to keep eye contact.

"Ehm, well, ahhh, yes. But I don't think I can tell you. Yet."

"Why?"

"I… can't say." Po answered. "Look, just… Just trust me on this one, OK? Please?"

Tigress didn't like this one bit, but nodded. Po bowed as thanks and then he and the Soothsayer went to the other shack. Tigress remained where she had promised to. She really wanted to sneak over and eavesdrop on the conversation the two had, but since she was in their plain sight, she remained where she was. But since they didn't hide, just stay out of ears' reach, she observed them instead. From what she could tell from their body language, Po was very stressed and scared. And the Soothsayer very sad. It seemed like she was telling him some really bad news, and he didn't take it well. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but all the sudden, Po raised his voice, and she could barely hear him say something like:

"It can't be! She's my best friend! I can't lie to her! She must know!"

A few minutes later, Po came back. As he passed Tigress, head hanging down as if defeated and eyes in the ground, he mumbled that they had to go. Of course, Tigress wanted to ask about a hundred questions, but she let it go for now. She didn't think Po would talk anyway. When they were back in the boat, Po sat down the back of the boat and took the rudder.

"You go back below." he said. "I'll wake you when we're there."

"Po, can I ask you one question?" Tigress asked. "Just one?"

Po sighed. Then nodded. Tigress hunched down in front of him so she could get his full attention and eye contact before asking:

"What did you see in the smoke from the pan?"

Po exhaled a heavy sigh before answering:

"I saw you. You were killed."

Chapter 5: In every lie, there is always some truth.

The morning sun spread its light over the Valley of Peace like blanket of gold as Shifu was walking down the stairs from the Jade Palace with Mantis. Mantis was going to the village to get supplies, but Shifu was going for a whole different reason.

"So, we're just going to train by ourselves today?" Mantis asked. "You won't be there to observe at all?"

"No, not at all." Shifu said. "But that also mean that you will be reviewed tomorrow to see if you made progress today, so no slacking off."

Mantis gave a nod as to say yes, and then a bow as to say goodbye as they arrived at the village. Here, their ways separated. Mantis went to the town square to get the supplies he was sent for while Shifu went towards Dragon Warrior Noodles and Tofu to have a chat with Mr. Ping. Something told him it was maybe time to get acquainted with this goose, as there was a possibility they could be family soon. The restaurant wasn't open yet, but Shifu could see through the window to the order counter that Mr. Ping was all busy in the kitchen already. Shifu was impressed with Mr. Ping's work ethics and physical condition. Up early in the morning and right at cooking with four pots and two pans on the oven at the same time, and this at the age of…

Come to think of it, Shifu realised that he didn't know just how old Ping was, but he couldn't be much younger than himself. Late 60's, early 70's maybe? It mattered not, so he brushed the thought away before knocking on the door.

"Not open yet!" Ping yelled from inside.

"Mr. Ping, it's Master Shifu." the old Kung Fu master called back.

The door was ripped open, and there stood Mr. Ping, a bit short of breath caused by the exhaustion of cooking and sweaty due to the steaming temperature from the boiling pots.

"Master Shifu!" Mr. Ping yelped in concern. "Is there something wrong? Has something happened to Po?"

"No, no, Po is alright." Shifu said as he came into the kitchen. "Well, physically he is. As far as I know, that is. I'm actually here to talk to you about his… interests."

With a small laugh, Ping went back to cooking.

"I think we both know what Po's interests are." Master Shifu, he said as diced carrots and dumped them into the noodle broth. "Kung Fu, noodles, more Kung Fu, eating, sleeping, Tigress, even more Kung Fu, cooking, and more noodles. Pass me that basket of cabbage, would you please."

"You said 'Tigress'," Shifu said as he handed Ping the basket he had asked for. "Could you please explain? Be a little more specific?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Ping said. "Of the Furious Five, Tigress is Po's favourite. He absolutely idolise her. I don't know just how many posters he's got on his wall of her, and those four other students of yours. Just go up to his room, and I bet you'll find enough proof."

"Yes, yes, I'm aware of my students being a bit of poster heroes." Shifu chuckled. "But I ask if his interest for Tigress is one of a more… personal character."

Ping stopped chopping the vegetables. He was a bit surprised that the conversation was taking this angle all of a sudden. If Po's interest for Master Tigress was of more personal nature?

"What do you mean?" he asked. "He hasn't been pestering your daughter, has he?"

"Not at all." Shifu said. "It's actually my daughter that in her own, somewhat clumsy, way who is trying to court your son. Well, sort of. I'm not really sure if you can court someone during a Kung Fu mission."

"Well, I'm glad Po isn't causing trouble for you, Master Shifu." Ping said as he went back to dicing. "And our children are grown-ups now. They can take care of themselves, and each other. Sure they might stumble in their words and scrape the ground with their feet shyly, but having a crush on someone is just another part of life."

Shifu gave a content nod to Mr. Ping's answer. He was glad to know that there didn't seem to anyone who thought Tigress and Po together as strange or wrong. Bidding his goodbyes to Mr. Ping, Shifu went to the grocery trade post to look for Mantis. The tiny Kung Fu master was haggling over a sack of rice when Shifu came, and bowed in respect when he saw his teacher approach. Shifu bowed back, then took out his money purse. He gave 8 yuan to Mantis.

"Buy some incense, candles and mistletoe." he told Mantis. "And don't tell anyone. Just leave it in my room. Understand?"

Puzzled, Mantis just nodded and hailed the trader again to procure the items.

Shifu snickered to himself as he headed back to Mr. Ping's. He had just had a great idea. All that he needed now was a tailor, a florist, and for Tigress and Po to come home.

Back at the restaurant, he grabbed an apron, and stood in attention before the goose.

"I'm off today." he said. "Give me work. Please."

Ping didn't have a clue as why his son's master was here to work for him, but as the business man he was, he just went along with it.

"OK, start by stirring the radish and carrot soups." Ping said. "Then you can put out the sign so people know we're open."

About the same time, Tigress yawned and stretched on her straw mat as she finally woke up. She cleared her throat and blinked a couple of times before she was sufficiently awake to stand up. She was still in the boat. Wasn't Po supposed to wake her when they came to Gongmen? She got up on deck.

As she came up, she saw that the boat was tied to a pier post. They were in the Outer Gongmen Harbour. She reasoned that the Inner Harbour was closed off while the city workers repaired the damage from the battle earlier that month. Looking about, Tigress found Po in the aft of the boat slicing beetroot and onions and spicing them before frying them in his pan. He saw Tigress as she came up the stairs to the hold under deck.

"Aww, I was going to surprise you when I woke you." he said. "Oh well, might as well just serve up."

He handed her a pre-prepared plate with noodles mixed with spiced beetroot and onion with some wheat buns on the side. Then he handed her a cup of green tea.

This was a thing that sometimes puzzled Tigress; Po wasn't a carnivore. Never ate meat. And he was nutrition-wise as well. He didn't really eat as much sweets and fattish food one would imagine. But still, he had built quite the stomach over the years, even for a giant panda. (Or at least used to. He had dropped a lot of weight after becoming the Dragon Warrior.) She assumed that whatever he ate, he had to eat lots of it. Or maybe he had just started to show better knowledge about nutrition after he started to train Kung Fu? She was almost certain that Po most likely didn't watch his diet those years he had lived with his father.

No matter, now he was keeping a diet that was much better for him and he shared his cooking with the Furious Five.

"OK, I need to tell you something," Po said, pulling Tigress out of her thoughts. "There's more to the vision I had than just…"

Po swallowed, not keen on saying the wsords out loud. Tigress waved her hand as to let him skip the part about her being killed and move on.

"So, the vision, it was an introduction." Po continued. "There's gonna be a quest that we both will partake. Or rather, the both of us, if you choose to join in."

Tigress finished her last piece of bun and put aside her plate.

"So, am I allowed to ask questions now?" she asked.

"Well, yeah." Po said. "But only if you partake in the quest. If you choose not to, I can't tell you. Then I'm afraid you can do anything but just sit and wait this whole thing out."

Tigress nodded. She knew that the last time they had this sort of quarrel, they had fought until she had squeezed him for the info. The only difference now was that he was the one with the plan, and she had to follow him. This time, she just had to trust him and hope it didn't end badly. Of course, the fact that his vision had included her death was indeed something that made her have doubt to his plan, whatever it was.

"What's next then?" she inquired further. "We search for Shen?"

"Not exactly." Po said. –We have to find clues as to who took him. We will need their assistance for some resson that I haven't been told yet."

"Question," Tigress said. "Is he alive? Did the vision say? Can you tell me?"

"Yes, I can." Po said. "And no, he is dead. Absolutely dead."

Tigress huffed a relieved "phew". At least they hadn't failed their mission after all.

"But if he's dead, why are we here?" she asked.

"That I can't tell you yet." Po said. "But come. We must find the ship wreckage."

They left the boat, and walked the make-shift pier into the construction site that used to be a part of the Inner Harbour. They hailed one of the workers there to ask for permission to walk through. The worker, a gruff elderly sheep, led them through and wished them welcome to the city when they were safely outside on the other side of the construction site. Po scanned over the area of the harbour they had come to and found what he was looking for. A huge rhino guard sitting by a checkpoint post. He was sleeping, but Po woke him up when they were up close.

"Huh? Who there!" the rhino growled. "State your business!"

"Hiya!" Po said. "I'm the Dragon Warrior, and this is Tigress. As in Master Tigress."

The rhino growled. Obviously he wasn't impressed or interested.

"So, ahem, anyway," Po went on. "We like to, eh, y'know, have a look at Lord Shen's ship?"

"With whose authority?" the rhino grunted.

"None." Po said. "We're just asking. Can we? Please? Pretty please?"

Tigress couldn't believe Po was trying to get through by begging. But was even more surprised when it actually worked. Rolling his eyes in annoyance, the rhino let them through with an even more annoyed hoof wave.

Now they were in the restricted part of the harbour that had been closed off due to damage after the battle and closer investigations. The remains of the destroyed ships were here. Po walked right to the wreckage that had the biggest cannon. It was without a shadow of a doubt Lord Shen's flagship.

"Wait here." Po said. "I need to get something from inside the wreckage."

"It'll be faster if I help you." Tigress said.

But by the time she had finished suggesting this, Po had both gone into the wreckage, obviously obtained the items, and returned.

"OK, we search for those clues now." he said. "I'd say we search around the weapon first."

With a confused shake of the head, Tigress followed Po onto the wreckage. They studied the large, destroyed cannon first as Po had suggested. From the looks of it, the blast that had been created inside when Po had thrown the fireball into the muzzle, had been of such force that it had pushed the weapon into the back of the ship and smashed the decorative ornaments there, wedging it stuck. But not hard enough. The mere weight of it had later on tore the ornament asunder, making the ropes the only thing that kept the weapon from falling to the deck. But as it would be, Shen had cut those during his desperate attempt to kill Po after his initial defeat.

"What do you think?" Tigress asked Po. "You were onboard when this thing fell. Anything different?"

"Yeah, someone clearly moved this." Po said. "There's even drag marks on the floor here. See?"

He pointed at the deck under his feet, and Tigress saw several marks there indicating that someone had moved the weapon. But how? That thing had to weight more than half a ton. How could someone come into the destroyed harbour, move the weapon, steal the body and then disappear, all undetected? One possibility was that they were talking about a larger group of people here, but that was still making the fact that no one had seen anything even more suspicious. Somewhere, someone was not telling the whole story. It could be the Wolf Boss, but there was no reason for him to lie either since he and his men had willingly gone to prison to hide from Shen if he was still alive. Agreeing to continue their investigation, Po and Tigress tested the weight of the weapon. It was too heavy for the two of them to lift or push, even with the assistance of ropes or planks used for leverage. The only way this thing Giving up on finding out how the weapon had been moved, they now scanned the scene for anything that could tell them who had been there to steal Shen's body. They had suggested several suspects to each other while searching, but usually concluded that each suspect was a dead end. Po suggested Shen's gorillas, but Tigress had pointed out that the gorillas had been arrested right after the battle and where in Gongmen Prison. Tigress had suggested wolves that wasn't among those they sent to Chorh-Gom, but Po didn't really believe it to that simple.

Po noticed that many of the floor boards in the deck floor was broken, especially where the weapon had originally impacted. Maybe something could be under deck? He started to pry them loose.

"Tigress, could you give me a hand here please?" he asked Tigress.

The Tiger Style Master came over and merely ripped up the floor boards. Soon, there was an opening big enough to climb down. Po hopped down into the hole. There was a sort of bedroom down there, all poshed up with fancy silks and expensive décor of silver and rubies. Po guessed this had to be Shen's bed chamber. Hailing Tigress down, he started to look for something that most likely seemed out of place for the room. He asked her to do the same.

"I'd say that the first thing out of place is that note nailed to the wall with a dagger." Tigress commented dryly.

Po took down the note. Disappointed, he handed it over to Tigress. The note was written in a foreign language that he couldn't read. Tigress couldn't read it either, but at least she recognised it.

"This is Turkish." she said. –I've seen it in some history scrolls in the library of the Jade Palace. Maybe we can find someone to translate for us at a temple.

Po nodded, happy that the note hadn't turned out to be a dead end after all.

They left the Harbour District and headed for the Governmental and Temple Districts. They weren't sure where to look first since Shen had caused damage to both during the battle and his preparations to conquer China. At one of the street junctions to the temples, Po suddenly stopped and looked behind himself.

"Did you see that?" he asked Tigress.

"See what?"

"I'm… not sure…" Po said as he scratched his head. "Maybe the lack of sleep after steering the boat into the harbour this morning is catching up with me."

They continued walking up the street leading out of the commoner's districts. They first went to the palace, hoping Master Croc and Storming Ox would be there, despite the fact that the palace was also a construction site due to Shen shooting down the palace tower.

Storming Ox was there, and after formal greetings had been made, they agreed to go to somewhere to eat. Master Ox showed them to a tavern called The Gold Daio. They ordered vegetarian dim sum, and some sun tea. Ox, glad to see them both, insisted on paying. (Which was fortunate since Tigress or Po had no money on them at the moment.) When the food arrived, Po occupied himself eating while Tigress led the conversation with the Bull Master:

"Master Ox, a couple of days ago, we were made aware of the possible disappearance of Lord Shen. We have just been in the harbor to investigate the ship, and true enough, there was no body. Instead, we found this note on the wall in the bedroom below deck."

She handed Master Ox the note. He read it with narrowed eyes.

"Hmm, it's Turkish, yes?" he asked. "What else did you find?"

"It might be nothing, but we noticed that the weapon had been moved." Tigress said. "Most likely to retrieve the body."

"You sound very sure on that point, young one." Ox said. "Why is that?"

"We went to see Shen's Soothsayer." Tigress answered. "She envoked a vision for Po which confirmed Shen's demise."

Knowing that the Soothsayer was reliable, Ox nodded. He was content with this answer. He looked at the note again. From his facial expression, it was obvious that he had no clue what the note said. But he had noticed something. He put the note on the table, and turned it so it faced the correct way for Tigress and Po. He pointed at a small symbol.

"Are any of you familiar with this symbol here?" he asked.

Upon seeing the symbol, Tigress shook her head in response while Po dropped his dim sum bowl as his eyes widened.

"You look trobled there, Dragon Warrior." Ox remarked. "Do you know this symbol?"

"Ah, no! No, I do not!" Po answered hurriedly as he picked up his bowl from the ground and tried to avoid eye contact with both Ox and Tigress.

Tigress knew that reaction. Po was lying. She knew because Po was a terrible liar. But she didn't say anything. Neither did Ox bother to pry any further. Instead, he explained the symbol.

"This is the symbol of an army known here in China as the Nomads." he said. "It is said that the Nomads came from foreign lands where they were no longer wanted. They united to protect themselves, and took hired work from kings and warlords as assassins and mercenaries. Usually, they operate around the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea, but it's not unheard of that they have moved up as far as our borders. There have been stories of them being involved in armed conflicts in Tibet, Mongolia, Nepal and even China itself. But when they have been confronted with this, there's never ever any proof."

"But what is their connection to Shen?" Tigress asked.

Ox was about to answer when he looked at Po instead. Somewhere along Ox's story, Po had been looking about behind himself as if he was afraid someone was following him or spying on him.

"Is there something wrong, panda?" Ox asked.

"I… don't know." Po answered. "It's like… someone is watching me… I think."

Both Tigress and Ox looked around too, but they didn't see anything than ordinary people in the street doing their daily routines and work. Nothing out of the ordinary.

"Anyway," Ox said. "I know someone that can translate this note for you. Come with me."

They left the tavern and followed Ox. To the Grand Temple of the Kung Fu High Council.

Chapter 6:

In the afternoon breeze, the remaining member of the Furious Five stood balancing on the support beam on the gates to the Jade Palace. They stood balancing one on foot (except for Viper who balanced at the tip of her tail), eyes closed and meditated. Usually meditation was done in solitude, but the point of this exercise was to achieve a higher level of consciousness and to learn how to meditate even in the middle of crowds. Earlier, they had done the exercise in pairs, and now they tried as a group. So far they had done splendidly, with the exception of Mantis. As the youngest and somewhat most naïve member of the group, he was constantly interrupted by his own thought regarding the others cryptic behaviour around the subject of Po and Tigress. He had problems concentrating because of this and knew that if he didn't confront them, he would never be able to complete this exercise.

"OK, that's it!" he suddenly yelled, scaring the others out of their concentration. "I have to know! What's the deal with Po and Tigress! Why are you guys so secretive about it! What am I missing!"

"Oh, Mantis." Viper said sweetly. "We're sorry if we have kept you out of the loop. You see, the thing is, we think Tigress and Po are in love."

"In love?" Mantis was all shocked. "With who?"

"With each other, man." Monkey chuckled. "Haven't you noticed how much friendlier Tigress has become towards Po over the last year? And especially after Gongmen?"

"Well, sure I have, but Tigress falling in love?" Mantis asked. "And falling in love with Po?"

"Is that a problem?" Crane asked. "Tigress is just as capable of loving someone as anyone else. She's not made of stone, you know."

"And Po is a very lovable guy." Viper said. "I think he's quite the sweetheart."

"Ehm, you're drooling, dear." Crane commented low to Viper.

"Look, Mantis, it's all good, buddy." Monkey said. "Po and Tigress might not be fully aware of it themselves, but they're quite the couple. They have such well synchronisation together, they have a great mutual admiration and respect for each other, and they are our friends. We should be glad on their behalf."

"I am, of course." Mantis said. "I just didn't realise they felt like that for each other."

"Well, now you know." Monkey said giving Mantis a friendly pat on the back. "Now, let's get back to the exercise. I had a lovely vision when I was meditating."

"You mean lovely dream when you were sleeping." Crane grinned.

"Haha. Funny." Monkey said. "Bet you had one too."

"Well, yeah I did." Crane admitted as he blushed.

Laughing, the four masters returned to their exercise of meditation.

In Gongmen City, Tigress and Po was in the Hall of the Flame in the Kung Fu High Council's Grand Temple. Under different circumstances, Po would have been like a small kid in a shop of sweets as he would have admired the portraits and urns and other things that was put on display here. But now he just seemed somber. Tigress was worried as usual, but given the fact that Po was carrying the memory of what he had seen in the Soothsayer's vision, she could understand why he was acting like this.

Master Storming Ox had led them to the Hall of the Flame to find the person that he had told them could read the note. Upon arrival, they were surprised to see that it was Master Sheep. Po, being the Kung Fu fanboy he was, knew Master Sheep was a very renowned scholar who had travelled more than any other member of the High Council, but never had he imagined the Master's travels had taken him all the way to Turkey.

Master Ox bowed to the sheep, and presented him with the note.

"The young ones need you to translate this." he said. "Obviously, it has something to do with the disappearance of Lord Shen's body."

The sheep gave the bull a raised eye brow: "His body? It has been confirmed?"

"It has." Ox answered. "The Soothsayer has seen it."

The sheep gave a weak smile. He was of course glad to know that the tyrant was gone, but he was above gloating over someone's death. He read through the note, and gave it to Ox.

"The note is a warning." he said. "It translate to; 'We are aware of your plans to attack our brothers in the East. This we will not allow. Stand down with your conquest and retract your cannons. Do not attack China, or we will make you face the consequences.'"

"Cannons?" Po asked. "What is a 'cannon'?"

"It is what the weapons Shen made are called." Master Sheep explained. "I know they are not very common in China, but in lands such as Gall, Gothica and Rome these weapons are becoming more and more frequent in war. They are fast replacing the ballista and catapult."

"Ahh, I don't know what a 'ballista' is, Master." Po admitted. "But I guess they're bad."

"Master Sheep, what do you know about the Nomads?" Tigress asked.

"Close to nothing, I'm afraid." the scholar Master said. "The Nomads are outcasts, and do not wish to be pursued by those who cast them out. Therefore, they make it a priority to not let strangers know of their whereabouts, or their intentions, or their way of life."

"Hmph! What is there to know?" Master Ox huffed. "They're honorless blades-for-hire."

"Now, now, Master Ox." Master Sheep said. "Don't be so quick to judge. None of us has actually met one of them."

Tigress and Po bowed to the masters to thank them for their assistance, and bid them farewell. Then they headed back to the city again. At the temple gates, Po paused and scanned around, suddenly stopping at one point.

"Now I know we're being watched." he said to Tigress. "See that guy over there in the hood? Don't make full eye contact with him, just peer over your shoulder."

Tigress did as Po asked. The street was fairly crowded, but she could see what Po meant.

A lone figure, a hawk it appeared, in a hooded cloak and dressed in leathers and rags stood still observing them. And though he had done a well job concealing it, she could see that he was armed with several hand weapons. From here, she could see that he had a sword and a crossbow under his cloak and hidden blades on his wrists, almost like Shen."

"What do you want us to do?" she asked Po.

"I don't think we should confront him directly." Po said. "But, let me just try something here…"

Po took a step forward, and made eye contact with the mysterious bird figure. Then, he made a bow of respect as if he was bowing to a master.

And in response, the bird folded his feathers and bowed back.

After this gesture, they remained still a bit just looking at each other, measuring each other.

And then, the bird simply turned and casually walked away.

"He'll be back, you know." Tigress said. "Maybe not today, or tomorrow. But he'll back."

"Yeah, I figured as much." Po said. "Let's get back to the boat. I'm hungry. Again."

About an hour later, they were back to the boat. Po went below deck to fetch his backpack, took out his cooking pot and made fire on the deck stove. He waved Tigress over to him and gave her some carrots and cucumbers and a knife, and asked her to chop them up.

"Is this really the time?" she asked. "Shouldn't we be planning our next move?"

"You talk easier if you spar, right?" Po said. "I talk easier when I cook. So, whether we eat this afterwards or not, is not the point. I just need to keep my hands busy while I talk. Besides, you can't tell me you're not hungry. We've been walking around in the city most of the day and haven't ate since Master Ox bought us dim sum."

Tigress, reasoning to herself that this made sense, and admitting that she was actually hungry as well, started to chop the carrots.

"So, as I told you this morning, the vision is an introduction." Po said as he dipped the cooking pot in the water over the boat rim to fill it. "The first part was to fetch something in Shen's ship. But before I go on, I must tell you something; I lied to Master Ox. I knew that symbol on the note. I just didn't notice it 'til he pointed it out."

"Yes, I sort of figured that out from your reaction during lunch." Tigress said as she shoved the chopped carrots away and start on the cucumbers. "Why did you lie to him?"

"Because of this." Po said as he took two steel emblems out of his pocket and put them on the table in front of Tigress.

The two emblems were some sort of medallions with coats of arms engraved. One of them illustrated a huge bulky animal (maybe a panda?) holding a mallet or hammer, the other a bird holding two blades. The one with the bird also had the symbol from the note on it.

"These two… thingies, are going to guide us." Po said, adding garlic to the pot. "They will tell us what path to take. I lied to Ox because I don't want to involve him or any of the Council members."

"How are these things going to guide us?" Tigress asked.

"Well, I'll show you." Po said, dusting off his paws. "Give me the knife."

Tigress gave him the knife, and Po nipped the tip of his thumb with it with a small yelp. Then he pressed the blooded thumb onto the one with the bulky animal. Then he pulled back, and moaned.

"Are you OK?" Tigress asked. "What did you see?"

"Pretty much the same thing." Po said. "Tigress, maybe I should do this quest alone. Y'know, so that I'm sure nothing happens to you?"

Tigress raised her eye brow in question.

"I just can't bear the thought that you can die." Po said. "I know that I offered you the opportunity to be a part of this thing, but if it means that you will die, I…"

"Po, I'm not afraid." Tigress said. "If I die, then I die. But I won't bear the thought of you putting yourself in danger alone either, so I'll stick by you until I know you're safe."

Po took a deep inhale of air, paused, and then released it. Then, pressed his blooded thumb onto the emblem with the bird. Again, he jumped back wincing. But this time his reaction was different.

"Same vision?" Tigress asked.

"No, not really,." Po said, almost in a whisper. "This was… not so bad, actually."

Tigress couldn't stand this anymore. She took the knife from Po, and pricked her thumb with it. Unlike Po, her only reaction to the pain, was a wage jerk of the corner of her mouth. She lowered her thumb towards the emblem with the panda-like animal, but Po grabbed her wrist.

"Tigress, wait! Please!" he said. "If you truly meant what you just said, let me just give you one last warning; the one who kills you… It's me. Or rather, I think it's me."

Tigress froze as this info reached her ears.

"What!"

"I think I'm the one who kills you." Po said. –In the vision, you get killed by a panda, and… Well, I mean, I'm the only panda I know of, so who else could it be?"

Tigress stood numb for a moment. The vision was Po killing her? She could feel her heart sink into her stomach, and she felt a lump build up in her throat.

"I… I don't believe you." she said as her voiced choked up, her eyes starting to burn. "You're lying."

Po's only response was a wage shake of the head as he let go of her wrist. Tigress had a small pause before she pressed her blooded thumb on the emblem.

Then, images started to race before her eyes as if she was taken into a trance. She saw a top view of Gongmen City. Then a top view of a bountiful valley with a huge waterfall that ended in a river that divided the valley in two. Then she saw a tent village. Then she saw a great fire raging over the same tent village while bird warriors and huge armoured creatures fought savagely. Then, she suddenly saw two persons on the tip of a cliff. A mortally wounded female tiger laid out on the ground at the very edge of the cliff, and a panda in armour carrying a spear-like weapon standing over her. And she was as if a bystander watching. She recognised the tiger as herself, and the panda did indeed have a huge resemblance to her friend, but…

Suddenly, the panda impaled the tiger on the ground with his weapon, roaring "For my people!", then kicking the lifeless tiger over the edge. Tigress made one last observation of the panda before…

Tigress woke up from the vision, and Po caught her before she fell.

"You OK?" he asked. "What did you see?"

Tigress looked at Po for while, with sad eyes. She stared right into those green, beautiful eyes that she had just seen in someone else's face. Then she just put her arms around him, and hugged him as hard as she dared to as she let her tears flow.

At first, Po naturally thought Tigress was devastated, but then she said something through her quiet sobs:

"It wasn't you. I saw him, Po, I saw his eyes. It was your eyes, yes, but they weren't in your face. It wasn't you. Thank the Masters…"

Then, after a moment, she let him go. And turned back to the table, and put her blooded thumb on the emblem with the bird.

Again, the vision overwhelmed her mind. Again she saw the top view of the city, then the strange valley and its massive waterfall, then the tent village that later stood ablaze in a horrid fire while warriors fought. Then, the cliff again. But now the scene had changed slightly. There were still two persons there. It was still a female tiger and a male panda. And the tiger was still her. But this time there was no doubt that the panda was Po. Now he was on the ground, mortally wounded. And she was kneeling beside him, crying and holding his head in her hands. And he spoke with a weak, fading voice; "Tell Dad it's gonna be OK…" And then, he faded off into the unknown…

Again, she came out of the vision nearly tripping over. Po looked her with curiosity.

"You… Didn't you say this vision was better!" she screamed at him. "That was worse! You were the one who died!"

"It was better!" Po argued. "What do you think I would prefer? To live knowing I killed you, or to die knowing you would live?"

Tigress fell silent. Of course, he was right. First and foremost, until now he had believed that panda who killed her in the vision was him. And second, she would have thought the same way if the roles had been turned.

Po turned around and went back to the pot again. The garlic water was boiling now, and Po put Tigress' chopped carrots and cucumbers into it to make a broth. He then started to add more spices and stir the pot.

"It's getting a bit late." he said. –What do you say we eat, head to the Council's training camp for 3 or 4 hours of training and then call it the night?"

Tigress agreed this was a good plan. Today had been way too eventful for her to comprehend already, so training sounded like a good idea. It would be nice to have something to take their minds off everything, and leave the worries for tomorrow.

In the meantime, a hooded hawk observed them from a distance. When he had seen enough, he took off and flew out to the open waters of the Gongmen River where a barge waited for him. Onboard was a sparrow, also dressed in a hooded cloak and leathers and rags.

"So, what did you find out?" the sparrow asked in Turkish as the hawk landed on deck.

"He saw me, Kazeem." the hawk grumped, also in Turkish. "But I don't think he poses a threat to us. Not yet anyways."

"So, what do we tell Teacher?" the sparrow named Kazeem asked. "Should we tell him he found the note intended for Shen?"

"Yes, we do." the hawk answered. "But we must be cautious. Remember, as far pandas go, this one is not one of Chengdan's warriors. We have no right to harm him."

The hawk then inspected his wrist as he shot out his wrist blade. Then added to his previous statement:

"At least not yet."

Chapter 7: I show you mine if you show me yours.

A new day raised over the Jade Palace as Shifu went down to the dormitory of his students. He rang the morning bell, and they lined up in the hallway at full attention, proclaiming "Good morning, Master" in unison. Of course, the last two places were still empty since Tigress and Po hadn't returned yet. They had been gone for five days now, and Shifu had to admit that he missed them. Even the panda.

"Students, today you are up for evaluation." he said. "As soon as you have eaten, meet up in the Training Hall and be prepared to show me what progress you made at yesterday's training."

"Master Shifu, if I may," Crane said. "We did not train in the Training Hall yesterday, so is it alright if we meet up in front of the Palace instead?"

"Oh?" Shifu gave Crane a puzzled look. "You trained in the actual Palace yesterday? How interesting. Very well then, meet up in front of palace after breakfast. Dismissed."

As the students hurried towards the kitchen, Shifu stopped Mantis.

"Did you do as I said yesterday?" he asked. "Did you get the items I requested?"

Mantis gave a nod and a wink to his master before joining the others at breakfast. Shifu followed after, humming to himself. He looked into the kitchen as he passed by, and watched the four of masters talking as they ate. Today's topic was Monkey's 'vision' during 'meditation' yesterday. It was hard for Monkey to argue, because Crane had already pointed out that Monkey was accustomed to talking in his sleep. And yesterday, he had listed several female names. Viper consoled him that it was nice he had met a nice girl like 'Ming Li'. But she did wonder who the 12 other girl names he had spoken were.

Shifu chuckled and continued his trek over to the palace. He hoped that today would be yet another peaceful day. After being more or less at the ready at all times for the last three months, a little time off from fighting bandits and thieves and whatnot didn't hurt.

About 20 minutes later, they all stood in front of the Palace.

"So, what type of training did you have here?" Shifu asked his students.

"Actually, we didn't really train here." Crane said. "We did just do the usual 4 by 4 hours of training in the Training Hall, taking turns in the spinning wood gauntlet and sparring on the Jade Tortoise of Wisdom. But after that, before our meditation exercise on the roof of the Palace, we repaired some of the stuff Po broke, and cleaned the place up. You know, to surprise you. Please have a look, Master. I hope you will be pleased."

Mantis and Monkey opened the doors into the Palace so Shifu could go inside and inspect their work. And they truly had made a magnificent job. The pool had been repaired after Po had cracked it open with the golden dragon statue that usually hung in the ceiling above it, and the statue itself was back in the ceiling. The decorative urn that Po had broken the very first time he had come to the Palace was glued back together and put back on it pedestal. And the whole place was spotless. Shifu could see his reflection in the floor. 'Mr. Ping can't complain about the cleaning lady quitting now', he thought. He then returned back outside.

"Excellent work, students." he said. "You have shown great dedication to the Palace. I believe a reward is in order. How about I take you all to dinner at Mr. Ping's after training tonight?"

The master students cheered. Mr. Ping's cooking was indeed a great reward. Then they headed back to the training hall for today's training and exercise schedule.

Around an hour later, in Gongmen City, Po stood at the pier in the light morning rain, where he and Tigress had docked and tied their boat. He was doing the Tai Chi routine he had learned from Shifu to enter his inner peace. He didn't know, but Tigress, who had been in the city to fetch some sugar and wheat, had been standing a few feet away watching him. She thought that it was weird to see Po doing this Tai Chi routine since it usually took someone a lot more limber than him to do it correctly, but so far Po hadn't missed one single step or move.

Po had been swerving the same raindrop for nearly a full minute, but now he let it go into the river. He took a deep breath, opened his eyes and stood up. He was done.

"That was very…" Tigress began, but the sound of her voice scared Po who stumbled off the pier and fell into the water.

She put down the groceries and ran to. Po was bobbing in the water.

"Oh man, you scared me!" he said. "Ehm, been standing there long?"

"Not long." Tigress said as she reached out and pulled him up on the pier. "What was the occation? Are the visions still troubling you?"

"Of course." Po said. "I mean, I'm glad you figured out I'm not the one… You know. But you still die. That troubles me. Also, the emblem that gave us that vision has the mark of a panda on it. Do you think there could be other pandas somewhere?"

"I don't know." Tigress said. "But speaking of the visions; they pictured a valley divided by a river that comes from a huge waterfall, and a tent village that burns down during a battle. I think we must find these locations. It must be where we will find clues to what happened to Shen's body."

"I think so too." Po agreed. "Any idea where to look?"

"I do." Tigress said. "And something tells me you are just going to love this; we're going to the Great Hall of Land and Water."

"O'boy! The Great Hall of Land and Water!" Po cheered as he clapped his hands with a big smile on his face. "That's incredible! I'm going to the Great Hall of Land and Water!"

Then his excitement sort of died out. He looked at Tigress, and smiled embarrassed.

"Eh, what is the Great Hall of Land and Water?" he asked.

Tigress was a bit amused to hear that Po didn't know of the place she had suggested they'd go to, but she guessed that not everybody could know everything about everything. She was just used to that the fanboy Po was almost like a live, walking lexicon who knew just about everything that was to know about Kung Fu and Chinese history. She cleared her voice, and explained:

"The Great Hall of Land and Water is technically an art hall, but all paintings and sketches and other works you might find there are all picturing China. Artists go to different places in China, like valleys and cities and villages and mountains and rivers and lakes and whatnot, and paint or draw them, and then put the picture in the hall so that people who might not have the opportunity to go somewhere can see what a certain place looks like. Like, if you lived in the east and couldn't go all the way to the west to see a certain village, you could come here and see paintings of it."

"Ah, so it's almost as those landscape paintings in the Jade Palace?" Po asked.

"Exactly." Tigress confirmed. "So, how about we go there as soon we've eaten?"

Po nodded eagerly and grabbed the groceries Tigress had put on the pier, and went to his make-shift kitchen to make breakfast. Today, it was bean sprouts with mild sauce.

After the meal, they headed to the Great Hall of Land and Water. Po was first standing agape in astonishment when he saw it. This place was enormous! It had to be at least 5 times as big as the Jade Palace. The building was divided in five halls based on where in China the art was from. It was East, West, North, South, and islands off the main land. They looked through the North hall first. Po was all giddy for every painting he saw, and made comments at every one of them. Tigress found this a bit annoying, but she didn't say anything. As of late, Po had been all sad and depressed, and she had missed the old Po. So seeing him like this felt good, despite how annoying he might have been acting.

After a while they concluded that none of the paintings or sketches matched their vision, so they went to the next hall, which was the West hall. Again, Po was all excited like a small kid.

Tigress then stopped in front of a painting. And though she knew she was going to regret it, she called Po over to see.

"Po, take a look at this." she said. "Remember this?"

Po came over, and gasped as he saw the painting Tigress pointed at.

It was actually a copy of a different painting, because Po knew where the original was; in the Jade Palace. It pictured him, the Furious Five, Master Shifu, his Dad, and the rabbit cook Wo Hop from Heilongjiang at his Dad's restaurant on Winter's Feast Eve.

"Oh my goodness!" he squee'd. "We're in a painting in the Great Hall!"

"Yes, we are." Tigress smiled. "And look here, there's even two signs here."

Po read the signs under the painting. The first read:

'Winter Feast in the Valley of Peace. Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Mr. Ping, Viper, Po Ping, Shifu, Wo Hop and Monkey dine at Dragon Warrior Noodles and Tofu.'

The other read:

'I came to the Valley of Peace to attend the first official Winter Feast Dinner hosted by the Dragon Warrior at the Grand Master Shifu's Jade Palace in 200 years. I was excited that I had the honour to celebrate Winter Feast with the Dragon Warrior in my lifetime, but it would turn out that the Dragon Warrior decided to leave the formal dinner to be with his father. Curious as to why he would choose a mere village celebration before this prestigious honour, the other Grand Masters of the High Council and myself decided to take pursuit. We came to a noodle restaurant where a whole mass of the village folks had gathered to celebrate the feast together. Informal, yes, but real. As they welcomed me and the children gathered around me, and the other masters engaged in light conversation with the villagers and playing with the children, I was reminded that I am bound to be an equal to the people no matter who I am. To quote my father, the late Grand Master Flying Rhino; 'if you do not fight to preserve the people you love, why fight?' I am honoured to say that even I learned this on this joyous night. My thanks to the Dragon Warrior, Po Ping, for making an old, tired warrior see the greater love of friends and family. –Grand Master Thundering Rhino.'

"He… Master Rhino… He remembered my name!" Po beamed. "He actually remembered me, even as I made a fool of myself at the dinner!"

"This is a great honour, Po." Tigress said as she patted him on the shoulder. "I'm very proud of you. Not everyone gets a personal note of gratitude from a Grand Master at such a young age as you are, Dragon Warrior or not."

But they had to continue their search. They looked at the art pieces as they walked by them one by one. Unfortunately, none of them resembled the vision. Onwards they went to the South Hall.

Tigress suggested they'd split up to make better time. While Po went to the left, Tigress looked at the art pieces on the right side of the hall. She did this also to sneak a peek at a specific sketch on her own. She found it quickly, since she knew where it was.

The sketch was that of the Bao Go orphanage, her home as a child. She smiled as she had to think that she had finally overcome all her hardships from the place. She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't notice Po until he was almost an arm's length of her.

"If you wanted to be alone with this, you should've said so." Po said. "I'd understand."

Tigress cleared her throat to cover her embarrassment.

"Shouldn't you be looking for an art piece that resembles the valley in our visions?" she asked.

"Yeah, and I found it." Po said. "It's right over here, right inside the entrance of the East Hall."

He took her by the hand (which Tigress found akward), and led her to a huge painting that was done right at the wall. It was exactly the same valley from the one they had seen in their vision. Right down to size of the waterfall and how the river was snaking it way through the valley, cutting it in two almost equal halves.

"Good work, Po." Tigress said. "Now, the sign says this is the Valley of Crystal Water, just north of the… Dai-Han Do Province. Hmm, that's quite a long way off…"

"So what do we do?" Po asked.

"Let's go back to the boat." Tigress said. "I need to think this over."

"What about the tent village?" Po asked. "Shouldn't we look for a painting or sketch of that?"

"Considering they're just a group of tent, I don't think they're permanent." Tigress said. "I think they are the living quarters of these 'Nomads', and they are travelling people. I don't think we will find any clues here."

Po nodded in agreement. When he had heard Tigress explain why there wouldn't be any clues of the tent village in the Great Hall, he had realized how dumb the question had been and feared Tigress would lose patience with him. Fortunately, Tigress either was too occupied thinking of the how to reach the Valley of Crystal Water, or she didn't consider the question as stupid as he had thought. Either way, Po was glad she hadn't snapped. They headed back to the boat as the sun was starting to drop in the sky. It wasn't many hours left before sunset. When they were back, they decided to spar for an hour on the pier before supper. Po was well motivated, and was able to keep up with Tigress just fine. Of course she did hold back, but Po was improving more for each day. Soon she probably had to start putting some actual effort into these spar sessions with him.

"So, this valley is far away, right?" Po asked as he sent an elbow strike towards Tigress' chest which she deflected with an elbow strike of her own. "Any idea how to get there?"

"We could just walk the whole way," Tigress said while flinging out a spinning kick at Po that met Po's flat paw and got tossed right back which she simply just turned to a reversed spinning kick that was deflected with the same paw, only from the back. "But it'll take four, maybe five days. We might not have a time limit, but there is a limit as to how long we can be away from our own valley. Crane, Mantis, Monkey and Viper might need our help."

"That's true," Po said, and raised his hands to signal to Tigress that he was too exhausted to go on. "After all, we've already been gone for, what, five days now? Maybe we better hurry things up and…"

He interrupted himself, then his face was all serious.

"Tigress," he said low. "Don't turn around, but he has followed us again."

"Who?"

"The hawk from outside the High Council's Grand Temple yesterday."

Tigress peeked over her shoulder, and saw that the hawk in question indeed stood just a couple of yards away from them. He was wearing the hooded cloak and hid his face, but the clothes were not to be mistaken. This was the same one.

"I don't like this." Po, she said. "I fear that at some point we have to approach him, maybe even engage him in battle. He is quite heavily armed, and I'm sure it is for a reason."

Po nodded.

"Then it might as well be now." he said.

He then stared right at the hawk, which obviously became aware that he was being watched himself. Po waved at him, signaling him to come over.

The hawk paused for a while, probably deciding whether to approach the two Kung Fu masters or flee. In the end, he decided to come to them.

When he was close, Po asked him directly:

"Who are you? Why are you following us?"

"My name is Aziz Ib Did." the hawk said with a heavy, foreign accent and bowing. "I have been sent to observe you, because Teacher believe you might cause a confrontation between my people and the tyrant Lord Chengdan and his army."

"Who is 'Teacher'?" Tigress asked. "Is he your master?"

"Teacher is Teacher." the hawk said. "Now, I saw you enter the peacock's ship and take the warrior medallions, panda. What do you intend to do with them?"

"Actually, I don't know." Po answered. "We… I mean, I was told to get them to… Well, it doesn't matter. Why you ask?"

"The medallions represent the Conflict." Aziz said. "On one side, you have the tyrant Chengdan. On the other, the Nomads. You have one medallion from each. Who will you side with, panda, when the Conflict comes to its peak?"

"What are you talking about!" Po said. "I'm not part of any conflict! I only came here because I was told that Shen was missing, and that he maybe was still alive! And when I came here, his body was true enough gone! What is this about a conflict! Who is the Nomads! Who's this Chengdan!"

Aziz tipped his head as he looked straight into Po's eyes.

"Your eyes tell me that you don't lie, panda." he said. "Are you truly so oblivious to what is going on here?"

"Yes!" Po said insistently. "I only came to make sure I really had defeated Shen!"

Aziz turned away and started to pace back and fourth as if in deep thought. It seemed like he hadn't been fully informed about the situation either.

"I think we need to talk this over then." he said. "Will you permit me to come aboard your boat so that we may speak undisturbed?"

"So that you can kill us where no one can see?" Tigress growled. "How dumb do you think we are!"

Sighing, Aziz started to pick out his weapons and drop them on the pier deck. He had a lot more weapons than Po and Tigress initially thought. There was a Turkish sword, a crossbow, a Persian dagger, a set of 10 throwing knives, a small metal tube that resembled a miniature cannon, a garrotte string, and several different small bombs. Also, he had two spring-out daggers attached to his wrists that took a bit longer to remove.

"I'm now unarmed, what more do you want?" he questioned sourly.

Tigress picked up all the weapons and carried them into the boat while Po escorted Aziz.

When they were below deck, they all sat down. Tigress made sure all of Aziz's weapons stayed behind her so the hawk couldn't reach them.

"OK then," Po said. "You wanted to talk, so talk."

"My people have traveled through Asia several times." Aziz began. "And each time our travels have come through China, we have often set camp in the lush and beautiful Valley of Crystal Waters. There we have always been able to stay safe and out of sight. There is a village there with giant pandas, but we have always stayed away. It's not our way to meddle in others' affairs. But a few years ago, for some reason we have yet to uncover, the general feel of the village changed drastically, and the very aura became ominous. And one day, we were discovered by the villagers and the leader of the village led an attack on us to drive us out of the valley. We didn't retaliate because we considered this attack to be their right as this was their valley. We did leave the valley, but that wasn't enough for the village chief. He led a new attack on us at our new camp location, and many of our warriors fell. We then left China and didn't return for a full year. But when we did come back, the village chief, who by now had declared himself by title of Lord and his valley its own province, led attacks against us anew as soon as he found out where we were. He openly and passionately nurtures hatred towards us. And his name is Lord Chengdan. And this…"

Aziz took the panda emblem from the table where Po had put it, and displayed it to them:

"This is his insignia. His crest. And this…"

He took the bird emblem and displayed it:

"This is the crest of my people; the Nomads."

"But what is this about me having to take sides?" Po asked.

"I thought it would be natural for you to follow your own people." Aziz said as he handed the emblems to Po. "Lord Chengdan is a panda. His whole province is populated with pandas. But I know of you, Po Dragon Warrior. I know you never grew up among them. I know you never lived with other pandas. I know you never have taken orders from the tyrant."

Po, and Tigress too for that matter, was stunned by this. So there really were other pandas out there. But hostile? And hateful?

"Where is this Valley of Crystal Waters?" Tigress asked. "Is it far from here?"

Po gave Tigress a questioning look since he knew she and he had already been to the Great Hall of Land and Water to find the valley, but Tigress gave a look back that told him to act as nothing. Maybe she was trying to find out if the hawk was lying or telling the truth?

"It is quite a distance. At least for you two, since you can't fly." Aziz said. "But travel by boat, and you can cut down the journey with a whole day if you sail the river that follow the border of the Dai-Han Do Province."

"The Dai-Han Do Province is four days away by foot." Tigress said to Po. "And it's quite far away from both Gongmen and the Valley of Peace. If any confrontation will occur, it will be far away from both places. We and our home are safe for now."

Po nodded slowly while scratching his chin and looking generally bewildered. This was starting to become too much for his simple mind to deal with. But he knew that as long as he had Tigress there, he would be OK. Tigress was always on top of things, and she was a quick improviser if things didn't work out the way she had hoped.

"Now, what do you choose, panda?" Aziz asked again. "Where does your loyalty belong?"

"Our loyalty belongs to the Valley of Peace!" Tigress sneered sternly before Po had the chance to answer. "We don't involve ourselves in other's affairs either. Unless they threaten the people of our home. And we actually protect people, not a band of thugs and mercs!"

"Admirable." Aziz commented dryly. "Well, if you truly have no love for Chengdan, I'd like to make a proposal. You help us obtain information from within his village, and we will help you in any aspect you may ask of us."

"What do you mean by obtaining information?" Tigress asked. "Are you planning to send us into that village?"

"Not both of you." Aziz said, shaking his head. Then pointing at Po. "Only him."

"No." Tigress retorted. "No, I won't let you! It's too dangerous!"

"With all due respect," Aziz said as diplomatic he could. "He's a panda, and from what I have experienced, pandas stick together. They will welcome him with great joy. You, however, would be executed on the spot. I know this sounds ridiculous, but these pandas are actually, by order by the Lord, hateful to all creatures that are not pandas."

"Also, I'd like to see them." Po intervened. –I've not seen another real panda since I was little."

"Po, this is not a social call we're talking about here!" Tigress argued. "If this hawk speaks the truth, which I'm not too sure he is, we're talking about sending you into a place where there's a lot of hostility. And you will be without immediate back-up if something goes wrong."

"How can anything go wrong?" Po asked. "All he's asking me to do is to go there, meet them, make some friends, talk a little tactics among buddies, and then leave without anyone noticing. Easy-peasy."

"You think this is a joke!" Tigress sneered in Po's face as she jumped to her feet. "Listen, Panda, I'm the team leader of the Furious Five, and if I say no, it's no!"

Po had been taken aback by Tigress' outburst, but unlike the time in the Gongmen Jail, Po this time became defiant in a whole different way. He stood up and slammed his finger into her chest.

"That's right; the leader of the Five." he grumped. "But NOT the boss of me! I don't take orders from you! I'm going to that village, I'm going to help Aziz, and I'm going to finish what I started! With or without you! If you won't help me, then go home!"

Tigress just barely managed to hide the sudden gasp she made in shock to Po's retort. He had just hit home at one of her most tender weaknesses; rejection. For a moment, all she could do was hear the echo of Po's voice over and over in her head; "Go home, go home, go home…"

She then clicked her neck with a nervous jerk, and sighed.

"You're right, Po." she said as her voice was about to crack. "I'm not the boss of you. I apologise."

She bowed deep, then walked up on deck. She walked to the aft of the boat, and looked out over the waters, all the way down to the forests where Po's birthplace was. Then, she let the tears come. Rejection. Rejection again. Why did those who she cared most about reject her? Why didn't Po understand that she yelled at him because she cared about him? Couldn't he see how much he meant to her? Fine then. She made her decision now. If Po didn't want to listen to her, then she would respect his wishes and go.

About half an hour later, Po came up on deck. Tigress stood with her back to him. She didn't want him to see her crying.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"I'm fine." she retorted. "What is your plan?"

"Well, me and Aziz's student will head to the Valley of Crystal Waters in the morning." Po said, fiddling his fingers. "Then I will pretend to be lost and call them to me and ask for sanctuary. According to Aziz, Chengdan won't resist the temptation of recruiting an outside panda as he believes he and his villagers are the last pandas. When I have gathered enough information, I will send it to you guys with Aziz's student so that Aziz and the Nomads can prepare for a possible attack. Most likely, Chengdan will probably make one very soon, so we have to work fast."

"So, you have decided then." Tigress said coolly. "You'll risk your life."

"Tigress, he has promised to help us." Po said. "The least we can do is help him and his people."

"Who is a bunch of outlaws and thugs, if I may remind you." Tigress said. "Fine. Do as you want. I'm going home as soon as you have left. I hope he has a boat, because I need this one to return home."

"Wait, you're not going to help me?" Po asked. "But I thought…"

"You were wrong." Tigress answered indifferent. "And you made it clear that if I don't help you, you do not wish my presence. So, I'll do as you ask; I'll go home."

"I admit I was quite brash towards you back there," Po said coming closer. "But I was trying to make you motivated to help me, not leave."

"I once told you that I could not watch my friend get killed." Tigress said. "That still applies."

There was a long silence. Po walked up so close to Tigress that he could hear her breathe, even with her back turned.

"Then, before you leave," he said. "Remember this;"

His arms suddenly came around Tigress' waist, pulling her gently into a bear hug. She felt his snout nuzzle into her neck from behind.

"You're more than just my best friend and idol." he said. "You mean a lot more to me than you'll ever know."

They stood like that for a moment that seemed to last forever, but for Tigress, still not long enough by far. She just closed her eyes and let herself drown in the pleasant feeling of Po holding her. To feel his thick, fuzzy fur warm her and let her feel safe and loved.

'Please don't go, Po', she thought to herself, 'please don't go'.

As Po let go off her, she didn't know anymore if she wanted to go home or go with him.

She had to rethink her situation.

Chapter 8: A home away from home.

It was a warm and pleasant evening as Shifu came to Mr. Ping's noodle restaurant with his students. The air was comfortably cool and the sky had a golden reddish glow as the sun was setting in the west. Today had been a very good day.

"Can we have beetroot soup to the noodles, Master Shifu? Please?" Monkey pleaded.

"You get to make your own order, Monkey." Shifu said. "This is after all my thanks to you for repairing and cleaning the Palace on your own accord."

They found a table close to the kitchen door and waited while Shifu went to the order window to alert Mr. Ping of their arrival. They could see Mr. Ping inside the kitchen all busy. When he saw Shifu, he greeted the master and shook his hand. Shifu indicated that the Furious Five was here, and wanted to order. Then he returned to the table where they sat.

"We'll get to order soon." he said.

Not 10 seconds later, Uncle Yang was there in an apron and a notepad.

"Evenin' y'all. I'm Yang, your waiter for the eve." he said. "What'll y'all havin'?"

"We will all have orange nectar to drink." Shifu said. "And I'd like some steamed bean sprouts and carrots with sauce, thank you."

"Oh, spiced noodles in beetroot soup!" Monkey said excited.

"Just plain noodles and stink tofu, please." Viper said. "And… yes, beetroot soup for me too."

"I want garlic soup with pepper and hot spice." Mantis said. "And onion noodles with more hot spice. I want it really hot, OK? Thanks."

"And I'll have steamed cucumbers and radish soup, please." Crane said.

Yang bowed before going back to the kitchen to place the order with Mr. Ping. When the food arrives, they dug in to their hearts content. Several hours of hard training had left them starved. Shifu had even joined in the training today to get some additional exercise, and poor Monkey had been guy with whom he had sparred with on the fire platform. But to Monkey's credit, he hadn't been burned once while Shifu had taken two fire blasts. As a matter of, when Shifu thought it over he started to realise that this wasn't the first time he was slipping. He was getting older and he didn't have the same level of mastery he had when he was young. Time was catching up with him, his mind was getting duller, his eye sight weaker and quite frankly, he was starting to have other priorities than Kung Fu. Earlier he had thought it was because Po's lively yet common villager attitude had started to spread to him, but he also knew that if he had wanted to, he could've not let that happened. Shifu had to admit that a part of him wanted to have a peaceful retuirement, persish the thought.

It had Shifu thinking, maybe it was time for him to step down? If his own students were surpassing him in skill, then maybe the title of Master of the Palace should be passed on? Of course, Tigress was then next in line for that job, but Po had changed that. As the Dragon Warrior, he had also claim to that title.

"Students, I have also gathered you here tonight for a different reason." he then proclaimed.

The four masters directed their attention to their teacher.

"I'm an old man, and as fate would have it, I might not be able to go on as the Master of the Jade Palace." he said. "I took the opportunity to have the four of you gathered here without Tigress and Po to have a private council meeting among us."

"Master Shifu, are you saying that you're not going to train us anymore?" Viper asked horrified.

"Train you I will." Shifu said. "But I think I might have taken on too many chores. And maybe a new Master of the Palace, of the Valley, is in order."

"Then who will that be?" Crane asked. "Will the High Council send a new master? Last one we had was Jun Ji, and he proved to be awful."

"No, I hoped that maybe the five of us here could decide." Shifu said. "And our best candidates so far is Tigress and Po."

There was a moment of silence, before the younger masters either smirked or turned away to hide the urge to laugh.

"Ehm, Master, I think you might want to reconcider." Viper said. "First off, Tigress would never take the post of Master of the Palace until you have passed beyond. And Po? No offence, but Po isn't exactly leader material. If those are the alternatives you give us, we call for a recount."

"And even if we were to vote on this, I for one think the candidates should be present when voting." Monkey said. "If neither of them want the job, they should be given the chance to say so and, if need be, explain why."

"Also, why would you step down just because you're old?" Crane asked. "Oogway led the Valley and the Palace way after his 120th birthday. You're only 65."

"Sorry, Master, but we won't let you step down." Mantis said. "As a matter of fact, if this is a council meeting as you say, I call for a vote on your continued duty as the Master of the Valley and the Palace."

"Wait, what?" Shifu was caught off guard by the tiny Kung Fu master's statement. "No, that's not what I meant…"

But Shifu didn't get to complete his sentence before Manits took the word once again:

"All in favour that Grand Master Shifu remain the Master of the Valley of Peace and the Jade Palace, say 'Aye'."

Crane, Monkey and Viper said "Aye" in unison with him, and the vote was cast. Shifu had been outnumbered by vote.

"Look, Master," Crane said. "If you really want to step down, I sympathise, I really do. But I think you might exaggerate. You are still very competent in your duties, and we wouldn't replace you for anything or anyone."

"I'm… honoured you feel that way." Shifu managed to stutter fourth. "But doesn't it bother you that you are starting to surpass me on so many levels?"

The foursome exchanged looks before answering in unison:

"No."

Meanwhile, on a different side of China, Po and Tigress packed up their belongings in the boat. Po was going to the Eastern Mountains with Aziz's student, and had packed several prepared meals in his backpack. Tigress had still not decided yet whether to go home or with him. But as things were, she was leaning more towards coming with.

"It's just for a week." Po assured her. "And besides, the chance of this posing a threat to me is like zero. I'll be fine."

"I still don't trust this person." Tigress said as she looked over her shoulder at Aziz who stood on the pier putting all his weapons back in place. "We haven't heard anything good about these 'Nomads', and I can't see what possible help they will offer us."

"Well, then how 'bout this?" Po said. "You tell him what we need help with, and make him give us his word that he will help us. I'm sure a little Tigress Signature Snarling would convince him."

Tigress thought on this suggestion a bit, then nodded.

"Alright, I'll do that." she said. "Wait here."

She went up on the pier, and walked over to the hooded hawk.

"I'm here to discuss terms," she said curtly. "And I expect you to honour your word."

The hawk bowed in response.

"First, we need your help to locate Lord Shen's body." Tigress said. "Po and I came back here to Gongmen City to find it, but it's not here. And frankly, I think you have something to do with that."

"Wrong." Aziz said. "I have everything to with that. I personally retrieved the body myself. Well, with the help of 30 other Nomads since the cannon on deck weight was too much for just me alone, but I retrieved it and delivered it to my people.

Tigress was taken aback when she heard this:

"YOU stole the body? Why!"

"To right a long lost wrong." Aziz said. "I'm sure you might've noticed that Lord Shen was quite proficient in the use of throwing knives? That's because we, the Nomads, trained him."

Again, Tigress was surprised.

"It's a long story," Aziz said. "But basically it was Shen who found us and pleaded to Teacher to be trained so that he could 'have his vengeance on those who had wronged him'. We had no idea that he was planning to use these skills to conquer China. Don't get me wrong, even if we knew, we wouldn't have cared, because we…"

"…Don't meddle in others' affairs. Yes I know." Tigress grumped.

"Correct." Aziz confirmed. "As we observed Shen after his departure from our training, we were appalled by his actions. We decided then to act on our own behalf once, and declared that we were watching him. He didn't listen, and soon he started to make random attacks on several villages, among them one where many of our kin lived, secluded in a long forgotten valley here in China. We learned that he had built a fleet armed with massive cannons. Another thing he learned from us. We had to clean up our mess. We had to take him down. We sent him one last warning, but as fate would have it; he didn't even get to read it. Instead, you and the panda found it when you searched the ship wreck two days ago."

Tigress shook her head. So these Nomads were also responsible for Shen too.

"You know what, hawk?" she growled. "The more I hear about you people, the less I like you."

"We can't expect everyone to either understand or sympathise." Aziz said. "And you are no different from others. You hate us. Fine. Noted. What were the other terms you wanted to discuss?"

"I want your word that Po will not be in any danger." Tigress said strict. "I want to be sure that he will not come to harm."

"Fair enough." Aziz said and lifted his wing in oath. "I, Elite Nomad Aziz Ib Did of Istanbul, swear on the lives of my daughters that the Dragon Warrior Po Ping of the Valley of Peace will not come to harm as long as he and his companion aid my people in defeating Lord Chengdan of the Valley of Crystal Water. Are you satisfied now?"

"What do you mean 'his companion'?" Tigress asked. "Are you insinuating that I'm to help him?"

"Don't act as if you're not going to." Aziz said. "That little drama last night might've worked on Po, but not me. You and I both know that you won't leave his side. Ever."

Tigress had no comment. Aziz was right; she would never leave Po. She maybe didn't know herself even, but she would of course stay with Po to the end of this thing.

"And besides," Aziz continued. "He will need someone to take care of Shen's body while he's in deep cover. I'm pretty sure that someone will be you. I can take you to the body as soon as we have sent Po and my student on their way."

Tigress nodded.

"Alright then." she said. "I'll help him as best as I can. As long as you stay true to your word."

"I will." Aziz said, bowing.

Tigress went back to Po and helped him get his backpack on.

"I've spoken with Aziz." she said. "And we have come to an arrangement. He claims that they were the ones who stole Shen's body, and he will take me to see it while you go on this fool's errand."

"You mean, you're staying?" Po asked hopefully. "You're not going home after all?"

"Oh, I'll be going home." Tigress said. –But not until this thing is over. I couldn't bear the thought of traveling for almost four days without someone to annoy me all the way. And I want to make sure that 'someone' is you."

Po responded by throwing his arms around her while babbling "Oh, thank you thank you thank you thank you!..." and nearly crushed her in a bearhug.

"OK, that's quite enough." Tigress gasped. "We need to get going."

Po released her and straightened himself up. Aziz approached them at this point.

"Are we all settled here?" he asked. "Ready to go, Po?"

Po nodded. As on cue, Aziz turned away and let out a sharp, loud whistle sound. On signal, a flock of 20 birds came flying over the harbour and landed on the peer. It was mostly eagles, falcons and hawks, but they were lead by, surprisingly enough, a sparrow.

"This," Aziz said pointing at the sparrow who bowed to Tigress and Po. "This is my student and closest brother in arms, Kazeem Adbas of Alanya. He will accompany you in your mission, Po. I give you my personal guarantee that he will aid you in anyway he can."

"What's the bird flock for?" Tigress asked.

"Well, we are, as I mentioned, low on time." Aziz said. "So I decided that a bit of help would be in order. These elites will carry Po over the Dai-Han Do Province, so we can cut down travel with yet another day."

The birds then threw out a blanket with leather straps all around. It was obvious that they intended to carry Po in this while flying. Po wasn't too sure about this, but a part of him also said it could be fun.

"Alright then." Aziz said. "Let's go."

Po sat down on the blanket, and each of the birds grabbed a strap each, and took off. They lifted Po up as if he was nothing, and then set off into the horizon. Tigress stared after them for quite some time before she concluded they were too far away to see.

"Then, it's time for us to set sail." Aziz said. "Shall we?"

Tigress let out a grumpy sigh before turning to Aziz.

"Where are we going?" she asked. "Is it far?"

"Well, it's quite far away from here, yes." Aziz said. "But we will be just a few miles away from where Po will be. And yes, we will require the boat. I can't carry you that far on my own."

Tigress and Aziz then went down into the boat, and set sail towards Dai-Han Do.

The trip took only three days, as they decided to travel by night as well to cut down on travel time. They didn't talk much as they didn't really like each other, but had agreed to remain neutral and polite towards one another in respect to Po. They also took turns as to who did the cooking, who manned the rudder, who slept at night, and who stood guard.

All through the trip, Tigress was troubled by her feeling of this whole ordeal. There was something about this that didn't sit right with her. As she had been told, the Nomads were outlaws. Outcasts. And mercenaries to boot. Agreeing to aid them had been very much to her and Po's advantage (if Aziz really spoke the truth, that was), but still, this just didn't feel right. As sooner this was over, the happier she would be.

"You seemed troubled, tiger." Aziz commented on the last night of travel. "Is there something you would like to say?"

Tigress was manning the rudder this evening that had a soft but chilled wind coming over the river as the stars twinkled in the sky above them. She had been sitting there for nearly three hours now, and during this time she'd been staring at Aziz as if she was trying to figure him out.

"Oh, I have a lot I would like to say." she said. "But I hope that I didn't have to repeat myself over and over, in case I would be accused of ranting."

Aziz made a smirky grin before answering:

"Master Tigress, with all due respect, most outsiders have no idea who and what the Nomds really are. And frankly, most of us prefer it that way. It makes it easier to protect ourselves and to stay hidden from unwanted elements. Such as Lord Shen's wolves and Lord Chengdan's troops. After all, we are more than just a 'bunch of thugs'. We consider ourselves family."

"I'm touched." Tigress says sarcastically. "Are you going to tell me about your slumber parties next?"

"I'll do better, I'll show you." Aziz said. "Steer the boat into that make-shift pier over there on the shore, if you would, please."

Tigress did as asked, and they soon made it to a small platform built on a couple of upright wooden logs that functioned as columns. Aziz tied the boat to this badly built pier, which was a lot sturdier than it appeared (Tigress guessed it was made that way as a camouflage, to keep strangers away from it), and went on land. Tigress followed.

"Stay close to me." Aziz said. "My fellow Elites might not be as… nice… and, welcoming as I am. And they lurk about in this terrain to protect the encampment."

"Lucky me then." Tigress smirked.

They headed towards a mountain pass, a trail that led up a very steep mountain covered in different types of bushes and smaller trees. Tigress thought that it looked somewhat familiar, but guessed that since she and the rest of the team had started to be quite the travelers, everywhere started to look the same after a while.

When the trail was starting to ascend, Aziz stopped.

"Did you hear that?" he asked with a low voice. "Almost like… footsteps."

"Your fellow Elites, maybe?" Tigress remarked to remind Aziz of his own warning earlier.

"You've seen us, do we look like we need to walk?" Aziz whispered back in an annoyed tone.

Tigress irritatingly admitted he was right. The Nomads were birds, so they would of course fly. But then that meant they were being followed. Or about to be ambused.

And quite so; all of a sudden, two huge brutes of gorillas jumped out from their hiding place behind a pile of rocks and bushes. It was some of Lord Shen's African bodyguards thugs. She thought that these guys were arrested in Gongmen after the harbor battle, but it would look like she had been mistaken. The gorillas wore heavy armor, complete with officer's helms, and they carried huge axes and shields.

"You!" one of them roared as he pointed at Tigress. "I remember you! You at harbor when Lord Peacock die! You kill him! You with Nomads! Then you die!"

Tigress had half expected that at some point she had to face these goons again, but this was a very bad time. She knew that they weren't trained in the arts of Kung Fu, but their raw, brute strength and incredible durability more than made up with it. This was not going to be an easy fight.

However, she didn't even have the chance to go into a combat stance before she heard Aziz scream:

"Göcebeler icin!"

Swift as a sword, Aziz dived right into one of the gorillas' chest, feet first, and grabbed onto his neck with both wings. A sharp 'Zwischhh!...' was heard, and the gorilla half screamed, half choked in pain, and fell to the ground clutching his throat whimpering. Aziz jumped off the gorilla with an elegant back-flip, and a loud "Bang!" was heard as some sort of projectile that resembled a miniature cannonball came flying out of Aziz's sleeve. The projectile hit the other gorilla's helm with great force, nearly penetrating the metal. Instead, it left the gorilla quite dazed by the impact. Aziz, who landed on his feet from the back-flip, jumped again. This time, he landed on the dazed gorilla's head. He pulled out one of his bombs and tossed it at the gorilla's feet. Upon impact with the ground, the bomb exploded and knocked the gorilla several feet away. Aziz jumped off in just the nick of time, and the gorilla landed unconscious on the ground. Aziz then calmly turned away, and walked over to the whimpering gorilla who clutched his throat. He was bleeding. Tigress guessed that Aziz had stabbed or cut the gorilla in the throat with the spring-blades he hid up in his sleeves.

Aziz kicked the gorilla so that he laid on his back, then placed his foot on the gorilla's hands that clutched the bleeding throat. With this added, unwanted pressure, the gorilla now whimpered even louder in pain.

"Who else?" Aziz asked in an icy voice.

The gorilla didn't answer. Just kept on whimpering. Aziz put more weight on his foot, and the gorilla's whimper turned into a pained scream.

"Who else!" Aziz asked again, more sternly this time.

Again, the gorilla refused to answer. Aziz then displayed his wrist to the gorilla, and sprung out the hidden blade.

"I've made two cuts in your throat." Aziz informed him darkly. "You still have a chance to survive if you get immediate help. But if I give you a third cut instead…"

The gorilla took the point.

"No one!" he hoarsed. "No one else! Just me and him! I swear! Just me and him!..."

Aziz retracted the blade, but lowered his face closer to the gorilla's.

"Good." he said. "Now listen to me, because I'm not going to like it if I have to repeat myself; these mountains holds Nomads that are far more dangerous than me, and have less reason to let you live. So pick up your friend and leave as fast as you can! Do you understand?"

The gorilla nodded nervously. Aziz removed his foot, and tossed a bottle with some sort of red gooey-like substance, and a roll of bandage to the gorilla.

"Dress your wounds and avoid any spicy food for a week." he said. "You should heal just fine by the end of the month if you hurry to a healer or medic now."

The gorilla got up, grabbed the bottle and bandage, and began tending to the cuts in his throat while Aziz and Tigress walked on.

"That was actually quite impressive." Tigress said. "But I thought you Nomads killed your enemies."

"Well, if you can give a good reason to, I'll head back and do it now." Aziz said.

"That's not what I meant." Tigress said. "I just heard that…"

She didn't get to finish her explanation before Aziz interrupted:

"Yes, we Nomads have grown quite accustomed to people hearing things about us that isn't true. It starts with someone fabricating a wild tale, someone passes it on after adding a few untrue details, then someone passes it on adding more false detail, and in the end people pass around a tale that is a blatant lie. It happens all the time. The best one I've heard yet is how we supposedly burned down Istanbul to its foundation after we were cast out. I'm sure the fact that the city still stands today is proof enough that the tale is not true."

Tigress had no comment to this sentiment, so she remained silent. At least for a while. But then curiosity got the best of her:

"What was that you said back there?" she asked. "You know, right before you attacked them?"

"It was 'Göcebeler icin'." Aziz said. "It means 'For my people' in my native tongue. We Nomads also never fight for one person alone. If we fight, it's for the whole people."

After a while of walking in silence, as they passed over a low ridge, Aziz spoke;

"And now, Master Tigress, let me introduce you to your 'band of thugs, outlaws and thieves'."

The sight that met Tigress made her stand in awe.

The hillside was littered with 40 tents or so, and close to 200 people. Not just the expected elite Nomads 'soldiers' she had seen before, but also farmers, hunters, and ordinary villagers.

And women and children and elderly as well. This was no thug camp; it was an actual village, of what appeared to be refugees. And from what Tigress could see; a very poor and down-beaten one at that. What shocked Tigress the most was the fact that this was the tent village from her vision! She and Po had just found both locations from the vision at the same time!

"You're refugees…" she said, her voice nearly failing her. "You're…"

"Now you understand?" Aziz asked. "Now you understand that we aren't as bad as people would have it?"

Tigress was about to utter her deepest apologies when suddenly there were two small hawk children coming running towards them, screaming "Baba! Baba!"

Aziz smiled when he saw them, and caught them in a heart-felt embrace. Tigress understood that this had to be his daughters. One of them stared at Tigress with big, scared eyes, and said something to her father in what had to be Turkish as she pointed at Tigress. She was probably wondering who the big tiger lady was.

Aziz explained, it seemed, because they seemed to be less scared as he spoke. Then he patted them on the shoulders and waved, and they ran into the tent village again, laughing and yelling like ordinary children.

Tigress followed Aziz into the centre of the tent village, as where Aziz told her to take a seat at the closest fire and wait for him.

Tigress did as told. While she waited, she looked around and took in a deep observation of the village life that transpired around her. It was just like any other village, only she didn't understand the language and the people here was dressed in filthy, torn rags. Quite clearly a people that only survived by the skin of their teeth.

When Aziz came back, he had brought an elderly eagle with him. The eagle had to be at least 70 years old, but he was in formidable shape. He wore the some outfit as Aziz, only he also had a chest protector with the Nomad crest on it. Tigress guessed that this had to be the one Aziz had referred to earlier as 'Teacher'.

They sat down with her, and Teacher bowed to her and said something lengthy in Turkish. Aziz translated:

"Teacher welcomes you to the Nomad Tribe, and expresses his gratitude for your friend aiding us in this hour of need."

Tigress bowed back. Again, Teacher spoke, and Aziz translated afterwards:

"Teacher asks if there is anything the tribe can do for you. Don't be afraid to ask."

Tigress looked at Teacher. He might've looked as if he was polite towards her, but she could see in his eyes that he did not approve of her presence. Whether it was because she was Chinese, tiger, or woman, she couldn't tell.

"I would like to see the body of Shen now." Tigress said. "Where is it?"

Aziz explained to Teacher what Tigress had said, and he bowed before standing up. Aziz stood up as well, but remained standing while Teacher left. The standing up was obviously the same courtesy as the one the Furious Five did for Master Shifu everytime they ate in the barracks. If Shifu stood up, you did the same. Common protocol of conduct to show respects to your master. Tigress was even a bit irritated at herself for not standing up herself.

"Alright, let's see the body." Aziz said, signalling her to stand up and follow him.

Tigress followed him to a tent that was set up a few yards away from the rest of the tent village. And for good reason; Tigress wrinkled her nose in disgust as the smell that reeked from the tent became stronger when they approached. Inside, there was a stretcher with a small body wrapped in bandages, sheets and rags.

"Feel free to inspect." Aziz said.

Tigress crouched down beside the body and loosened the wrappings around its head. The face of Shen met her. It wasn't as bad as she had thought. Except for the fact that his head was pointing in an unnatural way due to his neck being broken, Shen looked as if he was just sleeping. Tigress had thought that he would be mauled, that his face would be an unrecognisable mess. Fortunately, it wasn't so. But the smell more than confirmed that the body was already decomposing.

Tigress put the wrap back over Shen's head. She was content with what she had seen. Aziz had honoured his part of the deal.

"What do you plan to do with the body?" Tigress asked.

"We're not really sure, to be honest." Aziz said. "It's against our code and beliefs to burn a body, but as of now, that is what most of us wants to do since that is the only way we can be sure that he is really gone. As of yet, Teacher has not given us permission though."

"Well, I don't need his permission, do I?" Tigress asked. "Why not give me the body, and I take the body out of the camp and burn it?"

Aziz pondered on this as they left the tent and went back to the fire in the village centre. It did sound like a good arrangement.

"I'll ask Teacher." he said as they returned to the fire, and Tigress sat down again. "But I'm quite sure what he will say; 'Move the pyre so far away so that we do not see'."

"I'm sure I can do that." Tigress said. "You ask your Teacher then. I'll just wait in the meantime."

Aziz bowed his exit to Tigress, and left her by the fire for the second time this eve. As she sat there, she was worried about how Po was doing over in the Valley of Crystal Water…

More to come later... Working as fast as I can. =)


End file.
